Hardtack Diary

Richard Wilson

Description

A man will do many things for the woman he lovesA mysterious man requests a private meeting with Hardington Tachman, university professor and naval intelligence officer. The visitor weaves a tale of intrigue that propels Hardtack, as he is better known, across the Pacific from Mexico to China - in pursuit of a missing weapon of mass destruction. On the journey, Hardtack falls in love with Mei Li, an exotic young Chinese-American who is kidnapped in Hong King and disappears into the clutches of the Chinese mafia. Hardtack tracks her across China, while becoming ensnared in a plot to entangle the USin a war with China. This page-turning thriller unfolds toward a climax in the sordid brothels of Taipei, culminating in a final reckoning. This is the first in a new series featuring the adventures of the memorable Hardtack.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure fiction
• Adventure
• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783069583
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE HARDTACK DIARY
RICHARD WILSON

Copyright © 2013 Richard Wilson
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

Myoung Chung Wilson
Contents

Cover


PART ONE - THE GARBAGE MAN


CHAPTER ONE


CHAPTER TWO


CHAPTER THREE


CHAPTER FOUR


CHAPTER FIVE


CHAPTER SIX


CHAPTER SEVEN


CHAPTER EIGHT


CHAPTER NINE


CHAPTER TEN


CHAPTER ELEVEN


CHAPTER TWELVE


CHAPTER THIRTEEN


CHAPTER FOURTEEN


CHAPTER FIFTEEN


CHAPTER SIXTEEN


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


CHAPTER NINETEEN


CHAPTER TWENTY


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


PART TWO - THE YELLOW EMPEROR


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


CHAPTER THIRTY


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX


CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT


CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


CHAPTER FORTY


CHAPTER FORTY-ONE


CHAPTER FORTY-TWO


CHAPTER FORTY-THREE


CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE


CHAPTER FORTY-SIX


CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT


CHAPTER FORTY-NINE


CHAPTER FIFTY


CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE


CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
PART ONE - THE GARBAGE MAN
CHAPTER ONE
Mr. Cohen, whose first name was Benjamin, was not much to look at. He was slightly portly with sallow skin and an engaging, sociable manner. I didn’t like or dislike him. When he spoke it was softly with a slight New Jersey accent, a kind of flattening of the vowels, a bit like a New York tough guy, which I discovered he probably was. He quickly informed me that he had once been the head of all garbage collection for the city of Newark but was now semi-retired. It was at about that moment that I first noticed his tie, a relatively subdued one that complimented his dark blue, pinstripe suit. It was dotted with small garbage cans, intricately woven into the silk material. Clearly, this was a handmade tie and one that he wore to advertise where his money, which I was beginning to realize was considerable, came from. It also began to dawn on me that if he was in garbage collection in Newark, he also had fairly close ties to the mob which makes sure they control this sort of activity. As I remember, I wasn’t alarmed, but I did begin to feel real curiosity about someone whose presence, until then, had seemed fairly unremarkable.
We ordered lunch, something light, and he began to tell me a story, without any preamble, about why he wanted to see me. I knew from my study of Chinese history that during World War II the Nationalist government, which later lost out to the Communists, had virtually begged for war material from the United States. While China was not a primary theater of operations, it was still sufficiently important for the U.S. to build the Burma Road, ship arms by plane across the Himalayas – the so-called ‘hump’ – all in an effort to keep the Chinese in the fight against the Japanese. When the war was over, and before the Communists drove the Nationalists onto the island of Taiwan, there was also a continuing effort to obtain weapons to sustain the Nationalists in the civil war. Then, when they lost – and they lost badly – they continued to need weapons to defend themselves. Nobody thought they could, of course, because the Communist victory had been so overwhelming, and the Nationalists had retreated with very little left to their name. Still, lots of folks in the U.S., the so-called China lobby in particular, worked furiously to give them what they wanted.
Somewhere about the time when I was eating my salad, the garbage man, as I came to call him, leaned across the table and asked if I knew who H. H. Kung was. “Of course,” I said, for how could I not? H. H. Kung had been the richest man in China, was the brother of Madam Chiang Kai Shek, the wife of the President, and had been the Finance Minister in the Nationalist government. He was the money man, the guy who controlled all the cash, and, as some rumored, the king pin in a vast network of corruption. Millions of dollars to him were like dimes to us.
The garbage man continued, “H. H. Kung and Madam Chiang had a stepsister, the daughter of one of their father’s concubines, and she married an air force officer named Lee Daduan. I suspect it won’t surprise you that Lee became a general. I think he once even flew a plane.”
This was said sarcastically, and I got the message that Lee had become a general not because of a brilliant war record but because of his family connections. No news there. I could picture the oily General Lee, smiling, bland faced, and a crook to the tips of his fingers.
“That’s interesting,” I said, not at all sure if I should be interested or not.
I think the garbage man detected my ambivalence because he next said, “There’s an intriguing story about General Lee. Let me tell you about him.”
He then proceeded to tell me this fantastic tale which I hardly knew whether to believe or not, coming as it did from a man with garbage cans on his necktie. General Lee, he said, had been sent to Washington to take charge of weapons procurement for the Nationalist government. At this time he was rumored to be unmarried. If people asked, he told them his wife had died several years earlier in a flu epidemic that had swept through China in the last years of the war. High position had been no protection, and she had perished along with hundreds of thousands of others.
By the time General Lee went to Washington, however, he had acquired a young, blonde mistress who he tactfully kept out of sight when he threw the lavish parties for which he was famous. The elite of Washington attended, for he made certain to develop contacts with influential senators, businessmen, lawyers and others who might be of use in his procurement activities. As you might guess, hundreds of millions of dollars were involved, and not all of it went to purchase equipment. Or so people believed. In the house there was also a large, pug-faced brute of a man who General Lee referred to as his ‘chauffeur’. He was Polish, spoke with a heavy accent and had the build of a well-trained athlete. It didn’t take anyone two seconds to figure out that he was a bodyguard. Flabby Washingtonians treated him with respect.
This was a heady time in Washington. America was on a roll, even though the Korean War had been a scare, largely because communism had seemed to be sweeping the world. China was gone, Eastern Europe was also gone, and people wondered what would happen next. America rearmed. School children huddled under their desks in drills that falsely taught them how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear war. At the same time, the country was booming. Business was good, especially the defense industry. People had jobs, homes were being built, and if the world was a little scary, it was also a good time to be alive. General Lee was passing out money as if the spigot would never go dry. It was an interesting kind of game because military assistance money went from America to Taiwan to aid their defense and then returned to buy the equipment for that defense. And right in the center of it all was General Lee, doling out the bucks to eager American contractors. Nobody asked questions about the legality of the contracts that were signed. And, apparently, nobody looked very carefully at whether the amounts of money going to General Lee equaled the amounts that he spent for war material. Many millions were involved, a lot even by the crazy standards of Washington. Finally, of course, somebody did look, but only after something happened that is still very unclear.
It was a beautiful summer night, and the party that General Lee was hosting was one of his best. Many guests stood on the stone patio at the rear of the house, looking down over the manicured garden and the pool. Lights reflected in the water, while long shadows from the tall hedges that obscured the walkways cleaved the flowerbeds, crisscrossing the ample grounds of this city estate. Inside a musical ensemble was playing light melodies that just rose above the sounds of the guests talking and laughing. Waiters moved among them filling glasses with champagne and quietly removing plates that had been placed surreptitiously on tables and windowsills. General Lee himself was resplendent in his uniform, moving easily among his guests and pausing here and there to say a few words to those who he most wished to cultivate. In many ways it was a typical Washington party for the military-industrial elite. Everyone knew why they were there, but since this was a social gathering, there was no need for overly crass behavior beyond a few whispered words in the right ears. Those words, however, carried the promis