* * * * *
Lodge President Arthur B. Fox shook hands with his guest.
"How was your New Year, Professor Phillips?"
The sixty-two year-old archeologist smiled.
"Very productive."
Fox arched his eyebrows.
"You mean...?"
"It's confirmed. Ishimura's last living descendant became a post-Meiji ronin. Emigrating to the Chinese mainland, where he ultimately entered the service of a rather brutal warlord named Chen Wu Lung; 'the Black Dragon of Lanchou.' He became Chen's son-in-law, after helping to rescue the man's daughter from some Dongan rebels.* But, both he and the warlord were later killed while fighting against the International Relief Expedition, during the Boxer Rebellion. And, the ronin's widow suffered a fatal miscarriage during the second trimester of her first pregnancy! So, all her personal effects were inherited by her brother, Chen Ying; the new and present warlord."
"Including Ishimura's map to Kapu Hiva?"
The professor nodded.
"So, what can the Manhattan Lodge do to help?"
"When I was a boy," Phillips replied: "..., I heard tales of a daring Dutch seadog named Boojum Vandersnatch, who did a lot of blockade-running for the Confederacy out of Sint Maarten. The fortune he accumulated, as a result, was increased by his son, who shipped freighters full of picks and shovels up to Anchorage during the Alaskan Gold Rush. But, now, rumor has it that the grandson is only keeping the company in the black through rum-running!"
"So, with a little help from the Justice Department, I believe I could convince Mr. Vandersnatch to use his various 'business associates' to help us contact Warlord Chen."
The lodge president smirked.
"Consider it done."
* * * * *
SOUTH ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY
(SEVEN MONTHS LATER)
They met in the Howdah Suite of the Elephant Hotel. After some preliminary hand-shaking and sipping of (non-alcoholic) ice tea, the two men got down to business.
"How did your trip to the Orient go?" asked Fox.
Professor Phillips shook his head.
"The man will not part with it for all the money in the world. He's only interested in power. And, he thinks American military-issue tommy guns will help him achieve that power!"
"What?!"
The professor solemnly nodded.
"Over the next two years, he will systematically trade us raw opium (which he has, heretofore, traded for war-surplus British arms from Hong Kong) for those tommy guns. At the end of that two-year period, he will throw in the map as a 'free bonus.' "
"The arrogant blackguard!"
"I concur with your assessment. Yet, it doesn't change the fact that what happend in Michigan, last month, makes it more imperative than ever that we find the Hsia Jie-ji. Because, I don't think our world can survive another pair of back-to-back calamities like we've suffered through these past seven years!"
"Even it means committing what is tantamount to treason?"
The professor nodded again.
"Very well," said Fox: "I'll contact General Hopkins at the Pentagon. The arrangements we make will have to be elaborate ones. And, that will require his influence within the War Department!"
* * * * *
FISHERMAN'S WHARF,
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.
(DEC. 24, 1922)
Professor Phillips walked toward the end of the fog-shrouded pier. Half way there, he saw the agreed-upon signal. A hurrican lantern lifted once, vertically. Then, once more, side to side.
"Captain Lancer, I presume?"
He looked at the thinner and older of the two men before him.
" It's 'Matt' to my friends. And anybody who pays me as much as you did is definitely a friend! But, where are my manners? This is my godson; Gianni Martelli. Better known in boxing circles as 'Jack the Hammer.' "
The professor doffed his weather-beaten old top hat, and the younger man nodded in acknowledgement.
"Well?" Phillips now asked, getting right to the point: "Did you get it?"
"Oh, yeah! It took twenty-four straight hours of poker, and a helluva lot of Irish whiskey. But, the Ishimura map is now mine. Or, should I say, yours? Whatever his other faults, at least Chen Ying honors his gambling debts."
The professor sighed with relief: "Good! Because even the Knights of Melion don't have enough influence to side-track a Federal investigative task force, forever!! One too many tommy guns went missing from the Rock Island arsenal for that."
As all three men went walking back to the Pierce-Arrow town car waiting for them, at the landward end of the pier, Lancer asked how long Phillips thought it would take to form a complete expedition.
The professor shrugged: "With luck? We should be ready by April."
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
MANHATTAN LODGE,
KNIGHTS OF MELION,
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
(JAN. 5, 1921)
KNIGHTS OF MELION,
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
(JAN. 5, 1921)
Chapter End Notes:
*Dongan: obsolete sociological term for the Hui (Chinese Muslims) of Gansu Province. A large segment of whom once rebelled against the Ching Dynasty (1862-77).
Elephant Hotel: dubbed "Lucy the Elephant," in 1902, there were actually once three such structures in the late 19th century. The true Elephant Hotel was based at Brooklyn's Coney Island amusement park. But, it burned down prior to 1900. The more famous one, in New Jersey, was--and still is--merely a walk-through novelty attraction built next door to a conventional hotel.
P.S.---for the fate of the 1923 Phillips Expedition, see DIARY OF A NAZI ARCHEOLOGIST @ "Female Self-Gigantism Through The Ages."
Elephant Hotel: dubbed "Lucy the Elephant," in 1902, there were actually once three such structures in the late 19th century. The true Elephant Hotel was based at Brooklyn's Coney Island amusement park. But, it burned down prior to 1900. The more famous one, in New Jersey, was--and still is--merely a walk-through novelty attraction built next door to a conventional hotel.
P.S.---for the fate of the 1923 Phillips Expedition, see DIARY OF A NAZI ARCHEOLOGIST @ "Female Self-Gigantism Through The Ages."