The Sting of the Silver Manticore

by P. J. Lozito

  “Luckily, that stuff about the elixir never got out,” put in Allred.

  Charter grunted, “If only FDR hadn’t put the kibosh on the research once he learned what it contained.”

  “Blood. And taken from innocent victims, no less. As I understand it, he objected to us –the U.S. government -- playing God,” Allred shook his head sagely. “That’s what the enemy did, the ubermencsh. FDR, as far as I can see, died a hero’s death by refusing the elixir.”

  “And yet, drinking the blood of a strong enemy is as primal an urge as you can get,” stated Charter. “Look at all those blood-drinking murderers; Georg Grossman, Karl Denke, John Haigh.”

  “Don’t forget Peter Kurten.”

  “Kurten?” Charter nodded. “Sure, how could I? He was said to look years younger than his actual age.”

  “I don’t know if any of those guys were onto anything,” Allred sighed. “But Chris Corrigan could have more forthcoming about all this. He organizes dad, Sir Dennis, and Brent, Sr. to hunt Hanoi Tsin, but he really intended to get some of the elixir for Project Ultra Soldier.”

  “He really could only trust Mr. Allred. Your father, your real father, was a scientist and a physician, a humanitarian. He couldn’t be told the real reason for that charade—Doc’d want to give it to mankind,” countered Charter.

  “I know, then where would we be?”

  “Knee deep in people who don’t age and die, that’s where. And Sir Dennis, wasn’t an American,” added Nick Charter, “Ally or not.”

  “I don’t know, Nick, all that secret manipulation is a shameful thing to have in the past of the Supreme Commander of U.N.D.E.R.”

  “Well, Corrigan’s out now and Sir Dennis is in charge,” affirmed Charter.

  “What if Hanoi Tsin went public with that stuff himself?”

  “He plays it pretty close to the vest, according to our man who was inside.”

  “‘Was’?”

  “He found out Anthony McKay was undercover for us,” said Charter resignedly. “He’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Sounds to me like U.N.D.E.R. is assembling the troops for an assault,” mused Brent Allred, Jr.

  “It is, Brent, it is. And that’s what that small bribe was about,” said Charter. “Hanoi Tsin knows we’re closing in on him.”

  Charter stopped talking as their waiter appeared with their food.

  Midtown’s Books Kinokunyia, at 49th St. and Rockefeller Plaza, close to 6th Ave., stocked the latest magazines, newspapers and books from Japan. It was the newspapers that interested one particular member of the Black Dragon Gang who couldn’t legally return to his native land. But gaiatsu kept him from wanting to live there, anyway. Hikita could pass himself off as a mere salary man here.

  Books were not for him, and but here he could get the latest magazines and newspapers. Hikata browsed the racks. It was there he noticed something else of interest. What first attracted his attention to the older man were the sunglasses worn indoors. They looked suspiciously like Rearoscopes.

  He noted how his fellow customer managed to stay buttoned up against the heat. Hikata saw an older Japanese contentedly shopping as if it was a mild spring day. Then it hit him. The warning Hanoi Tsin circulated about the elderly Japanese he sought. This could be him.

  Not only was this man the right age, but his valiant resistance to the oppressive heat successfully hid one particular characteristic: burned onto the chest of the man Hanoi Tsin wanted was a phrase in Chinese. Fantomal had reported an old Japanese among the group when he invaded Wylie’s headquarters in 1954.

  If he was the long missing I.A. Kyoto, the man was a master spy who would easily detect any tail. Twenty minutes later, when he passed the old man, again Hikata smiled broadly at him. It was returned. Yes, there were the gold incisors. It was he. Hikita immediately slipped out and called his boss. Then, the Black Dragon man, back inside, watched on its second floor, as his subject took his purchases to a cash register. Of course, he did not know that I.A. Kyoto had long ago become Gani Bako.

  Help had not yet arrived. But Hikita was not worried. He had gotten a good look at his man. Very shortly the deadliest man in the Fi-San would arrive on the scene.

  ***

  “With so many of us gone, now, why not work together? Besides at U.N.D.E.R., we’re busy fighting the Circle of Life,” said Charter. “And U.N.D.E.R. uses other agencies’ operatives.”

  “Hmm, we could coordinate with your people in the fight against the Fi-San,” nodded Allred.

  “We still want Hanoi Tsin,”emphasized Charter. “Co-operation is the key.”

  “And I’d like to get the man who killed my real father.”

  “Don’t forget, in the next few years, Hanoi Tsin will be at another weak point. We missed the last one. He’ll need more elixir,” stressed Charter. “Before that, I’d like to introduce him to Wilhelmina.”

  “They have lady agents now?”

  “Yes, but Wilhelmina is my custom-made Luger.”

  ***

  Lee Ying Shang, dressed as a humble deliveryman of Chinese food, scurried through Rockefeller Center. The boy was trained in the deadly art of jeet kune do. He was capable of unimagined feats. But Lee had also received a university education. His English was perfect. He could drive a car, fly a plane, shoot a gun, ride a horse and navigate a boat by the stars. His mastery of Asian weapons was unsurpassed.

  Hanoi Tsin had found it expedient to raise his son under careful conditions. In truth, he took pleasure in turning the plan Richard Wylie, Sr. had used for his own son against his enemies. Lee Ying Shang, though only five feet, five inches and one hundred and fifty pounds, was part weapon, part puppet and all lethal. Instead of ruling with fear, the devil doctor had effectively manipulated his own son into thinking his father was a persecuted force for good.

  Right now he was in the act of colliding gently with an old Japanese man outside the bookstore. Lee knew this was called being a “mustard chucker.” Hopefully no one would ever know a man of his learning had been reduced to this.

  Lee apologized profusely in Cantonese. The target answered, in the same language, with “No harm done. But one must look before he goes, youngster.”

  So, this old Japanese had signed his own death warrant when he admitted his facility with Chinese. But how could this old one be a threat to his father’s peaceful work? Well, he was not to question, but to follow orders. Now tagged with a mild radioactive substance with its own unique signature, the Japanese could easily be traced.

  “One thing puzzles me,” Allred sipped coffee Scottie had just brought in. They were back at The Daily Sentry office on Park Avenue.

  “Only one?” kidded Charter, looking over the office Haloid XeroX 914.

  “Whatever happened to this Yarrow Frost joker? Everybody was after him, if I recall.”

  Charter grew serious, “Brent, you ever hear of Project Habbakuk?”

  “No, what’s that?”

  “A bizarre project the Allies had near the end of the war. They wanted to fashion a radar-invisible warship, entirely out of ice for use in the sub-zero latitudes,” explained Charter.

  “Oh, come on,” said Brent incredulously.

  “No, they really planned it.”

  “How does that fit in with Yarrow Frost?”

  “Remember that book from a couple of years ago; Prospects of Immortality? It was about cryonics,” Charter explained.

  “Sure, I remember it,” admitted Allred. “I keep up on all the newest developments in science. Disney got himself frozen. Who was the author of that book?”

  “Ettinger, I think, was his name,” said Charter.

  “Right, right. Well, what’s it got to do with Yarrow Frost?”

  When Charter hesitated, understanding crept into Allred’s face. “You’re not gonna tell me they finally found bits of this dead, frozen Yarrow Frost while they were scouting a place for this Habbakuk... ”

  “Oh, we recovered a whole body,” said Charter. “Luckil
y our man Flintheart has some practical experience with cryobiology.”

  “Well, where is Frost?” sputtered Brent.

  “Gently defrosting in an aluminum-lined wrapping of dry ice, 79 degrees Celsius below zero. Our British friends are studying him. They mean to master the process. I know they have some plan with their man Powers. Now, seeing as this guy chose the alias ‘Frost,’ well…”

  “I know: what’s in a name?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  LEE YING SHANG

  The warm evening found Lee Ying Shang tracing his target, the suspected Mr. Kyoto, to the sleepy Long Island resort town of Eastport. He had spent the better part of ninety minutes, driving some eighty miles out of Manhattan over the Long Island Expressway. Lee estimated the town was all of five and a half square miles.

  Gone was the disguise of the Chinese food deliveryman. Did not Sun Tzu say all warfare was based on deception? Attired in a neat, charcoal gray suit, Lee piloted a non-descript, late model Valiant slowly past the house his equipment indicated through its steady electronic beep. This traced the radioactive substance the Japanese had been smeared with.

  At this late hour, a second circuit of the block could still be chanced, Lee reasoned. Leaving the vehicle a block away, he continued on foot. Night had emptied the streets. Now he must reconnoiter, investing some time.

  Lee had picked out a neighboring yard from which he could gain access to Kyoto’s modest Victorian house. He silently crept through the unlit backyard. He noted the well-tended garden. Lights were off in the presumably rented house. Like so many of Hanoi Tsin’s army, a wall was as inviting to him as a staircase. Burmese dacoits had taught him scaling.

  Noiselessly, Lee slid up the hall screen and took the second floor. The third, slightly ajar, door he stopped at revealed the steady rhythmic breathing of a sleeper. Even in just moonlight, Lee could make out Kyoto. He studied the man who had been responsible for countering his father’s work for world peace. Still, he looked too harmless to stop anyone.

  But his father had decreed that I.A. Kyoto must die. Lee approached the bed noiselessly. Kyoto stirred, opening his eyes. He beheld the specter of his death. Lee saw fear in the face of the old man. It told him that Kyoto recognized him from his collision in Manhattan. Lee knew he must strike before an alarm was given. One swift chop to the throat and the Japanese lay still. Lee moved towards the bedroom window. It would be an easy jump to the ground.

  “Hold it right there,” came a sharp command.

  Lee froze. Standing at the door was the elderly Brent Allred, Sr. He knew this man formerly published New York’s Daily Sentry, having seen his picture in that newspaper. He held a big .45 steadily in his ancient hand.

  “How…?” Lee blurted.

  “I haven’t stayed alive this long not being suspicious sort,” interrupted Allred. “You move like a cloud, young man, but you drive like a water buffalo piloting a Sherman tank.”

  Lee silently swore he would correct that mistake if he got out of this alive. Then Allred noticed his friend did not stir at the sound of talk. He edged closer to the bed.

  “Bako? Bako, say something,” Allred leaned toward him. “You’ve killed Bako!” he cried out. At that instant, Lee’s foot lashed out at Allred’s gun.

  “God in Heaven, no one can move that fast! What kind of killer is Hanoi Tsin breeding now?”

  “I am Lee Ying Shang,” he said, bowing, “son of Dr. Hanoi Tsin. My father has worked his whole life to bring peace to the world. This one stood in his way.”

  Lee moved towards the window. Allred forgot about his aching hand and rushed to Bako’s beside.

  “Bako, old friend, I’m so terribly sorry…” He clutched the corpse in a loving embrace.

  Lee, at the windowsill, stopped. He turned. “Why do you mourn this evil one?”

  Allred turned, “Evil, evil? Look! I‘ll show you EVIL!”

  He tore open the pajama top. Faded, yet still discernable, were the Chinese characters reading ‘So end the enemies of Hanoi Tsin’ burned into the skin of his hairless chest. Lee was stricken. Time seemed to stop.

  “In 1916, Bako, Kyoto, was in Japan’s Secret Police, merely protecting his country’s interests, when I rescued him from worse,” declared Allred, weeping.

  “My father did…did this?” stammered Lee in a low voice. But he knew. Chinese was his first language. He recognized the pictograph for his father’s name.

  “That isn’t all he has done, boy. Have you ever heard of an old-time adventurer named Doc Wylie? No? Hanoi Tsin directed an airplane into a skyscraper to kill him and his family in 1945. The innocent woman and child never did Hanoi Tsin any harm. He tried the same stunt again in ’46 with one of Wylie’s assistants, a distant cousin. A plane crashed at Idlewild in ’54—again, your father, trying to kill one man. Well, you can tell him Wylie’s kid didn’t die. You can tell him we’re coming for him!” His eyes bulged, veins stood out on his neck, yet his voice was a croak.

  Tears were streaming down the face of Lee Ying Shang. This explanation fit the gaps in his father’s behavior. All of it made perfect sense now.

  “When I first encountered Hanoi Tsin in 1942, he was older than I am now,” sobbed Allred. “Do you know your father’s age, Lee? He was born in 1840. He stays young and vital with dosages the Elixir Vitae every twenty-one years—it uses fresh human blood. Fresh human blood, boy, where do you think he gets it, volunteers? No. He kills.”

  The two men approached each other. Lee knew now. His father was ch’iang shih, feeding on blood. “‘The parents’ age must always be known, both a source of joy and a source of dread,’” Lee quoted Confucius in shock.

  “Mr. Allred, I have been blind. I am sorry, very sorry. I have allowed myself to unquestioningly believe everything my father told me. I give you now my life in exchange for the one I have taken.” Lee presented the dropped .45 to Allred. He fell to his knees.

  Allred took the gun, “You do? If I let you live will you help me take vengeance on your father for what he has done?”

  “I swear,” affirmed Lee.

  “Then you shall join me, son. There is work to be done.”

  ***

  Harris Vincey had been apprised of the situation. Poor old Bako. And that poor sap of a son Hanoi Tsin had manipulated. What a damn shame. Vincey thought he’d never see anything as bad as what he and Dave Spenser had witnessed at No Gun Ri or how the senseless death of his buddy Corporal Austin in Korea left a kid fatherless. Korea was brutal. He heard Vietnam was worse still.

  Right now he was loitering on Allen St. Normally he would be joined by one of the Ladies Auxiliary like Lenore Scott. A man and a woman walking down a street were less suspicious than a man stag. But old Colt had nixed that idea as too dangerous. And rightly so; somehow the Fi-San found and killed Bako. What else were they capable of?

  Apparently, Allred Sr. thought the situation was now under control. Still, Vincey jumped when he got the high emergency signal on his girasol ring. So, this son of Hanoi Tsin would be joining them. He had directed the team to a block on Allen St., saying his father owned every building on it.

  The plan was simple: Lee would report in. But first he would plant the load of U.N.D.E.R. - issued plastic explosive he carried onto Hanoi Tsin’s anti-gun device. A counter-measure against it had never been developed. Hanoi Tsin had lost enough of these machines; this one was protected by high- impact shielding.

  With U.N.D.E.R. agents, led by Nick Charter, entering through the various escape passages Lee had told them about, they were going to get the devil doctor. This time there would be no slipping away. Bako, you will not have died in vain, Vincey silently swore to himself.

  He waited for the explosion. Vincey would then pull on the new mask, for Hanoi Tsin still held the old snakeskin, lost when Brent glued it to Fantomal’s face. The plan called for Vincey to go through the apartment building front door Lee would leave unlocked.

  Vincey still didn’t understand why his friends in this operatio
n found it necessary to have him dress up like an old pulp magazine vigilante. Was it so the cops would laugh off any eyewitness report they got of fictional characters running around? In England, some killer was doing that now, dressing up like the comics’ Winged Avenger.

  ***

  In a mass sub-basement that encompassed every building on the block, Dr. Hanoi Tsin received his son.

  “Report,” he said. It was a joyous occasion—his son’s first mission as an assassin for him.

  “Honorable one, the man you seek is dead by my hand,” Lee spoke in Mandarin Chinese.

  “You look unwell, my young dragon,” said Hanoi Tsin.

  “I…have been hurt. I foolishly underestimated the ancient one, father. He fought. I was not prepared for that.”

  “Ah, child, you must never, ever underestimate any opponent.”

  His next statement was interrupted by a sharp report. Hanoi Tsin began to move to a hidden exit.

  “Fear not, father. I will protect you. Let us investigate.”

  “I believe that, in your inexperience, one of our enemies has trailed you here. My observers report a white lurking about the area. Yes, let us go.”

  A series of rapid reports echoed throughout the basement.

  “Gunshots!” noted Hanoi Tsin. Slowly, he turned to his son, “That explosion we heard…my son, you were late arriving here tonight. Only you could have disabled my device.”

  He took a cautious step back, “One develops a sixth sense, living as I do. So, my enemies have poisoned your mind.”

  A group of archers and knifemen ran toward the gunshots. Hanoi Tsin did not attempt to draw them here. He knew no arrow or knife could get near his son.

  Lee Ying Shang approached his father threateningly, “You lied to me!” he hissed.

  “Have a care, youngster. Observe,” Hanoi Tsin presented a small emerald signet.

  “Do not try to hypnotize me, father.”

  Instead, there was a sudden flash. Blinded, Lee struck out for his father where he last heard his voice. But Hanoi Tsin could move fast when the situation called for it. Now Lee heard the sounds of struggle around him.