Dragon in the Snow

by Forrest Dylan Bryant

  “Well, we can’t stay out here,” said the Baroness. “And frankly I’m even less inclined to go to the police now. I don’t fancy a night in the slammer, do you? Never mind trying to explain it all...”

  The Professor interrupted her. “My dear Baroness, I hate to tell you, but this isn’t over yet.” The sound of squealing tires reached them, and the Baroness floored the accelerator again.

  The sedan was weaving wildly in a frantic attempt to catch up to the Delahaye. Still atop the vehicle, the black-clad assassin was flat on his stomach and holding on tightly with both hands, his weapon tucked away in a pouch at his waist. He, at least, was not a danger for the moment.

  “Now what?” said the Baroness, as the car zoomed toward the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan. “We’re going to run out of island soon.”

  “I know a place right across the Brooklyn Bridge,” said Rosie. “Someplace they’ll never find us.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “Brooklyn!”

  With a shrug, the Baroness made for the bridge, which proved to be their salvation.

  * * *

  Midway across the span, a hunched, gnomelike man named George Kepperman stood beside his dilapidated truck and spat a stream of crude oaths, all directed at the tattered remains of his left front tire. As the proprietor of the Long Island Shovel Company, Kepperman compensated for his narrow profit margins by being cheap: he used inferior materials that would break with the first heavy load, all the better to sell more shovels. He also drove his own delivery truck rather than hire a driver, and he equipped that truck with thin retread tires that blew out with the regularity of the Sunday funnies.

  A true artiste of vulgarity, Kepperman was in especially fine form on this morning. The wrecked tire was actually his spare, leaving him stranded and incensed one hundred feet above the East River. He paid little heed to passing motorists as he heaped invective upon his broken-down truck, pausing only to direct rude gestures at those would-be Samaritans who slowed to offer help. But one grizzled cabbie took Kepperman’s comments about his mother personally, and abandoned his hack to engage the shovel monger head-on.

  The center of the Brooklyn Bridge became a treacherous obstacle course as drivers swerved to dodge the fight. The confusion mounted when the Baroness’s Delahaye hit the span at sixty miles an hour, scattering cars on its approach, with the sedan coming up close behind. The assassin had adjusted to the unfamiliar motion of riding atop a moving vehicle by now, and raised himself up to a crouch, one hand reaching for the deadly globe at his waist.

  The Baroness accelerated further and cut to her left, barely sidestepping a bewildered motorist drifting across lanes. The sedan moved to follow, but took the right-hand lane instead of the left, hoping to flank the Delahaye. It was a fatal mistake.

  With a horrendous squeal, the sedan slammed off the parked taxi and caromed sidewise into Kepperman’s truck, narrowly missing the raging fistfight taking place between them. The destruction was total. When the police finally caught up, all three vehicles were smashed into the bridge’s railing in a mass of twisted metal. The sedan’s driver had met a quick but messy end behind the wheel. Fifty feet farther down the road lay a body clad from head to toe in black — or more accurately, from neck to toe. A collision with one of Kepperman’s shovels had dispatched the rest of him over the railing and into the East River, along with the metallic sphere he had carried.

  There were conflicting accounts of the incident. Several witnesses claimed that the sedan had been chasing some sort of blue race car, but without plate numbers or a clear description, police let the matter drop and concentrated on cleaning up the wreckage. Kepperman stormed about the crash scene threatening to sue somebody, anybody, but no one was listening.

  * * *

  It was almost noon when the blue-on-blue Delahaye finally chugged into the courtyard off Fifth Avenue, badly in need of gas, an oil change and fresh tires but otherwise undamaged.

  Captain Doyle voiced the question that had been on everybody’s mind for the previous hour: “Young lady, where on earth did you learn to drive like that?”

  The Baroness regarded him with a coy smile. “Come now, Captain,” she said, “You don’t think daddy gave me this car just for trips to the drugstore, do you?”

  Chapter VI

  DO NOT FOLLOW

  —

  ALL WAS QUIET at the mansion: Hank’s cordon of spies and informants had detected no suspicious movements since the previous evening. The servants had been interviewed and their stories tallied with those of the Baroness and Sonny. For the moment, everyone could breathe easy.

  A council of war was called in the afternoon. Sid Friedman paced about the room, tugging thoughtfully on the lapels of his green jacket. Hank stood stone-faced at the window like a big brown watchdog, surveying the people walking along Fifth Avenue with suspicion. Rosie sat stiffly, sipping tea to hide her agitation while following Sid with her eyes, as the Baroness and Professor Armbruster sat side-by-side on a low sofa, contemplating the glowing cylinder propped on a coffee table in front of them. Captain Doyle and Sonny were on another sofa, the inventor puffing slowly on his pipe and staring into space while the chauffeur looked nervously at his employer, worried for her safety above all.

  “What would Doc Savage do,” Sid declared suddenly. “That has been our motto and it has served us well, agreed?” There was a noncommittal murmur from the group.

  “Right. Well, at this point Doc would outline the situation as it stands. And the situation is this. One...” — he held his index finger aloft — “We face unknown but ruthless, organized, and well-armed adversaries. We know that they can follow our movements, and we must assume that we are under surveillance at all times.” Hank growled at this last point but did not interrupt.

  “Two. It seems safe to assume that the enemy is after the artifact that was delivered last night. We know the artifact was retrieved by Baron de Rothburg somewhere in Asia, most likely within a few weeks of his disappearance. He did not mention it in any of his correspondence. We know he wanted it sent here immediately rather than bringing it home himself. And this, combined with the testimony of our late friend the smuggler, implies that he felt it necessary to get the artifact away from Asia quickly and quietly, thinking it would be safer here.”

  “Makes sense to me,” muttered the Professor.

  “Three. The artifact remains a total mystery to us, but we know the enemy is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to get it. They tracked it all the way from Shanghai to New York. And I believe...” — Sid paused, hoping to add greater weight to his next revelation — “I believe that they nearly had the artifact on the high seas, having murdered the entire crew of the tramp steamer Golden Star to get it, but it somehow evaded their grasp.”

  Hank and Rosie nodded gravely at this suggestion, but nobody else in the room had heard the tale of the ghost ship. Sid forestalled their questions with a hand. “In time, in time,” he said. Then he resumed his narrative.

  “Four.” Another pause, as Sid looked each member of his audience in the eye. He wasn’t conscious of the fact, but he was warming up to his new role as Doc Savage. “We know that we shall have no peace until we have gotten to the bottom of this madness. But none of our questions — the origin of the artifact, the motives of our enemy, the fate of Baron de Rothburg — none of these mysteries can be solved here. The Baroness said it herself this morning. We must go to Shanghai. All of us, together.”

  “All of us?” queried Rosie. “Mister Writer Man, some of us have real jobs. We can’t just drop everything and go halfway around the world.”

  “We’re all in danger,” replied Sid. “If only some of us go, the rest might have to face that gang alone.”

  There was a heavy silence for a few moments as the meaning of Sid’s speech sank in. Then Hank spoke, producing a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

  “About dat,” he started, “Sonny and I found somethin’ else in the canvas dat dingu
s was wrapped in...” He held the paper out to the Baroness. There were three words, scrawled in black ink:

  Do not follow.

  The Baroness looked closely. “That’s my father’s handwriting.”

  Rosie whispered, “He must have known there was danger, that he might not come back...”

  The Baroness cut her off: “He was trying to protect me. But he was wrong. I’m in it too now, and I have to go. We all have to go.”

  The Professor spoke next. “If your father wanted to get the cylinder out of Asia, is it wise for us to take it back? Shouldn’t we keep it safe here, for further study? Some of my colleagues—”

  “My dear Professor,” said the Captain, “Stuff it. I seriously doubt any place is safe, if Sidney here is correct. If we have the cylinder, they’ll keep coming for us, surely. But I suspect that will happen in any case. As they say in the cinema, we know too much. I agree with the Baroness; her father has miscalculated, and we are all caught in his error. Our only chance now is to find the truth, and to do that we must go to the source, and bring the object with us.”

  * * *

  Finally, reluctantly, it was agreed. The seven of them would all head for San Francisco and thence to Shanghai where, hopefully, they could pick up the trail.

  The next question was how to cross the country. Several suggestions were made but all were found inadequate: too easily intercepted, too slow, or unable to carry a group of seven. In the end, Sid took yet another page from his beloved pulp stories and concocted a daring plan.

  The group would split into three teams, setting a rendezvous for San Francisco seven days later. The Baroness, a trained pilot, would fly in her private two-seater aircraft. She would take the cylinder, and Hank would provide protection. Arriving some days before the others, the Baroness could then arrange a Pacific passage while Hank did some sleuthing to learn more about the enemy.

  Sonny, carrying a decoy package, would drive the Captain and the Professor in the Delahaye. There was risk, but on open highway the car would easily outrun any pursuit, and the Captain was sure he could get even more performance from the engine given a few hours tinkering. Taking the car would also give the Princetonians a chance to collect some equipment and get their affairs in order before heading west.

  This left Sid and Rosie. They would also carry a decoy, and their method of travel might well prove the riskiest: they would ride to California in Baron de Rothburg’s private rail coach. Few knew of its existence: it was registered in the name of the Adirondack-Poughkeepsie Railroad, a minor business interest of the family. But once on the rails there could be no escape, no chance to improvise if something went wrong.

  The Baroness phoned her family’s business office to make arrangements for the rail car and the plane while Doyle headed down to the garage to have a look at the Delahaye’s motor. Sonny and Rosie set to work re-wrapping the cylinder and fashioning the decoys. Everything counted on speed and misdirection. It was crucial that an outside observer not know which of the three teams had the real artifact. And if possible, their destination had to be kept obscure until they were all safely out of the enemy’s sight. That would buy valuable time.

  Sid and Rosie had the hardest job. They would have to find some way to give their pursuers the slip in the forty or so blocks between the mansion and the train platform. Sid would carry the captured flamethrower for self-defense, but if they were seen boarding the train, their chances of survival would be slim at best.

  Chapter VII

  ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

  —

  TIMES SQUARE AT NIGHT is a kaleidoscope of bright lights, taxicabs and crowds. Always crowds. There’s an old saw that says if a man stands at the corner of Forty-Second Street and Broadway long enough, he will eventually run into everybody he knows. But this sea of humanity ebbs and flows in predictable tides, as New Yorkers and tourists alike rush to restaurants at six o’clock, theatres at eight, ballrooms and nightclubs at ten.

  It was high tide, just before eight o’clock, when a checker cab pulled up to the curb right in the center of the square and discharged an Orthodox Jewish family. First came a bearded man in heavy overcoat and wide-brimmed black hat, followed by a woman dressed modestly in a long skirt and shawl, her hair covered by a snood. The woman held a swaddled infant in her arms.

  Nobody was likely to take notice of this trio in Times Square, where a Zulu chieftain in full regalia would hardly raise an eyebrow. But this family was anything but typical. Half an hour before, the “husband” had been Sid Friedman, his “wife” Rosie Esterhaszy, and their “infant child” a flower vase holding three lilies in the corridor of a Fifth Avenue mansion.

  The disguise was Rosie’s idea. Hank had arranged their evacuation from the mansion by calling some in of his close personal friends from the ranks of New York’s cabbies. At seven thirty, just as darkness began to settle over the city, two identical checker cabs pulled into the Fifth Avenue courtyard. The Baroness and Hank climbed into one, Sid and Rosie into the other, while the three remaining men hopped into the blue Delahaye. An outside observer would have seen the movement, but would have had a difficult time discerning who got into which vehicle. And if such an observer had been looking for a particular piece of luggage, he would have been bewildered to see not one but three identical bundles, each loaded into a separate car.

  A moment later, the three vehicles slipped out of the driveway and immediately separated: one cab turned onto Fifth Avenue and headed downtown, while the other circled to Madison Avenue and sped northward. The Delahaye made for a Central Park transverse road and cut rapidly across town.

  Rosie and Sid were in the downtown cab, which earlier in the evening had made a special stop at a Yiddish theatre on the Lower East Side. Sid’s cousin Moishe was stage manager for a poorly attended play called The Rebbe and Mr. Roosevelt, and he provided the cabbie with some spare costumes from the basement. Sid and Rosie put these on as the cab drove a long, erratic route, cutting back and forth across midtown Manhattan, drifting in and out of traffic. The costumes made a poor disguise — Sid’s beard would not have withstood scrutiny — but they didn’t intend to be on the street for very long.

  The Orthodox family walked one block up Broadway, enjoying the cool evening and watching the flashing billboards as theatre patrons swarmed around them. After a minute or two they approached another checker cab, much like the one they had just abandoned. The hire light was off, but it didn’t matter. The driver opened the door as they approached without saying a word, and the cab slid quietly away.

  Twenty minutes later this new cab came to a stop outside Grand Central Station, just a few blocks away from its starting point, where it blended into a stream of identical checker-striped cars. But instead of a family, this time it was a nurse in crisp white uniform and wire-rimmed spectacles who emerged. The cabbie helped her remove a folding wheelchair from the trunk, and into it slid a sickly young man with a blanket draped over his legs. The nurse hailed a porter, who wheeled the sick man into the station, whistling cheerfully to himself as the cab drove away.

  The wheelchair was another loaner from the Lower East Side theatre. But Rosie’s second costume change had required no theatrical support. The uniform was her own, from her job at St. Vincent’s Hospital. As a real nurse, she had no trouble assuming the persona of traveling companion for a wealthy patient, leaving New York’s choking soot in search of clear air and sunshine. Sid’s role required nothing but silent acquiescence, but he kept the mysterious flamethrower handy under his blanket, just in case.

  Sid, Rosie and the porter went directly to the tracks operated by the New York Central Railroad. They were too late for the famed 20th Century Limited train to Chicago, which departed promptly at six o’clock. Instead, they found the private car of the Adirondack-Poughkeepsie attached to a string of Pullman sleepers known as the Great Lakes Mercury, a late-night departure just beginning to board.

  As far as they could tell, they had not been followed at any point on th
eir circuitous journey. If anyone had tried, surely they had been confounded by the double-switch of cabs and disguises. Regardless, nobody could have tracked one taxi out of New York’s thousands, not at night.

  Rosie gave a little gasp as the doors opened and she saw the interior of the private coach. It was luxurious, crammed with amenities including settees, armchairs, a full bar, a private bathroom complete with running hot water, and four sleeping berths. Sid happily traded his wheelchair for a sofa and loosened his collar, breathing freely for first time in twenty-four hours. Rosie headed straight to the bar, quickly identified the most expensive-looking bottle, and poured two stiff drinks. With the enemy nowhere in sight, a four-day ride to San Francisco promised to be very pleasant indeed.

  * * *

  Half a world away from the bustle of Grand Central Station, a tall, lean servant entered a similarly large chamber, this one known simply as the Great Hall. He bowed low the moment he crossed the threshold and held that posture, avoiding eye contact with the silent sentries on either side as he walked precisely one hundred paces to his destination.

  The man’s flowing green robe swished quietly as he moved, the only sound in the room save for the crackling of an enormous hearth off to the side, beyond his fixed, downcast view. He carried a silken envelope. He did not know what was inside. All he knew was that the contents could kill him.

  At the end of the ornately embroidered carpet, the floor rose in a series of steps. The man climbed three of them, slowly, his head still bowed.

  “From America, my Master,” he said reverentially. He held the silken envelope before him with both hands, trembling ever so slightly. The envelope was taken from him, and a deep, resonant voice said simply, “Go.” The man was greatly relieved, although he did not show it. Dismissed, he knew he would not die, no matter what the envelope contained.

  A long, slender hand opened the envelope. The nails were much longer than average, slightly curved, carefully manicured. A tattoo — the head of a rampant dragon inked in black — was barely visible poking out from the Master’s sleeve. The hand removed four smaller envelopes: dispatches from America, from the swarming, filthy city called New York. The Master felt he could smell the city’s stench on the thick-grained paper, even though the messages had been transmitted by radio and transcribed less than three hundred paces from where he sat.