Previously on Jake Hammer:  After spotting an unusual aircraft on the deck of a tramp steamer while on a routine mapping flight, Jake swooped in low over the ship’s deck, taking photographs as he did.  But after the first pass, the ship’s crew opened fire on him with a hidden deck gun!  Using extreme evasive maneuvers, Jake photographed the ship and the plane and escaped.  Later, two agents from the Department of Defense questioned him.  One of the photographs had revealed something strange:  Stenciled on the side of the airplane’s cockpit was a blue wolf, the insignia of the famed German war ace, Hans Dietrich!  What was he doing on a ship off the coast of Mexico?  Now,   

 

     High in his office in the Palace of the President, Plutarco Calles, the strongman of Mexico, looked out over the lights of Mexico City and pondered the recent confluence of events that led him to this moment.  He recalled the first meeting with the German ambassador, bearing a classified message of the highest diplomatic priority.  And then the telephone conversation with Herr Hitler himself (“Think of it Calles!  With you, Mussolini, and me, this could be our first step in ruling die ganze Welt!—the entire world—die ganze Welt, Calles!”).  And then there were the gringos who thought they could exploit the financial situation in California to their own benefit.  Calles knew he was a political survivor—first the Civil War, and then the Cristeros War had taught him that—but this was another level of risk.  And currently, things were not entirely satisfactory.  Funding the planned operation fell to him mostly, and to do so, he was forced to take on another foreign partner whose reliability could be questionable, and whose loyalty certainly was.  He summoned an adjutant to place a call on the secure diplomatic line to the number he had scrawled on a scrap of paper.  A minute later, the call went through.

     Calles wasted no time with a greeting: “Is the funding operation still proceeding normally?  The source of the money is, shall we say, dangerous, and the delivery method unorthodox.”  There was a pause.  “Yes, I recognize that the test you arranged the other day proceeded without incident, but will bigger amounts be safe?”  A longer pause.  Then, “I hope you are correct.  Our overseas partner has provided men and equipment, but no money, and we need prodigious amounts to pay for this operation.  Yes, you will be well compensated for your risks; I know you are in business.  Good night.”

     Over 1500 miles away in Los Angeles, a hand replaced the telephone receiver in its fork on the candlestick, while the owner’s left hand removed a cigarette from a case on the table beside the phone.  Finally, the right hand picked up, and struck a table lighter, and moved to light the cigarette held loosely in the lips of the call’s recipient—none other than Madame Zhu!  She looked down on the lights of Los Angeles, thinking, as she smoked languidly, how stupid men were, and how easily manipulated.  And on top of that, despite their numerous, foolish, outward signs of bravado, they were also easily frightened—a further sign of their weakness.  She reflected for a moment:  Only women were able to master their emotions to use their intelligence, and this was precisely the reason why women were so much more dangerous than men.  She had known this for a long time.  She crushed the cigarette out decisively.

                                                                                   *     *    *

     Jake looked at his watch.  He needed to finish dressing if he were going to be on time for his date with Penny at the Rancher’s Ball.  He stood in his closet, fingering the bespoke tuxedos one by one.  None of them appealed to him.  Suddenly, he grabbed his full-dress uniform of the California Air Guard Reserves.  It just felt right.  Better hurry up, he thought, as he donned the resplendent jacket.

     A short time later, in her parents’ palatial home, Penny Landers emerged on a second-story landing wearing simple but elegant sheath dress, in black crepe de Chine, cut at the knee.  “How do I look?” she quizzed Jake, who was standing in the home’s entry at the bottom of the curved staircase.  “It came from Paris; it’s by CoCo Chanel!”

     “You look fabulous,” Jake admitted, “but, black?”

     “Chanel designs for the modern woman, and the modern woman knows black is not just for funerals anymore,” Penny explained.  “I’m also wearing her perfume.”  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she approached Jake and turned her head, exposing her neck.  Jake was nonplussed.

     “Take a sniff for heaven’s sake!”

     “Oh.  Yes.  It smells, uh, lovely.”

     Penny rolled her eyes:  “You’re quite impossible, do you know that?  But anyway, I’ve asked James to bring the new car around.”

     Out front, they found an exquisite, and impeccably appointed 1930 Auburn Boattail Speedster convertible, all done up in a custom paint job of orange and cream, its two-panel split-screen windshield ready for the road, chrome spotlights gleaming, onyx “pipe-bumpers” polished to a high sheen.  Jake could hardly wait for the siren song of its 8-cylinder in-line engine with its 125 horses to begin.  Penny cranked it once, and it caught.  She blipped the gas pedal playfully a few times.

     “Let’s go!” she said.  And with that, they were off.

     As they motored along, Jake was free to crane his neck at all the open territory.  “Someday Penny, with the right plan, all of this could be developed into very valuable property.”

     “Couldn’t tell you anything about that.”  Penny kept her eyes squarely on the road ahead.

     “Why not?  Didn’t you learn anything about economics in your four years at Smith?”

     “No, not a thing.  Which evidently is as much as you learned about women in your four years at Cornell.”

     “What do you mean by that?  Who’s a woman?  You?”  Jake slapped his knee.  “That’s a good one Penny!”

     Penny turned briefly to glare at him, and then put her foot emphatically on the accelerator, mashing it to the floor.  The big car immediately shot forward.  Jake raised his eyebrows, alarmed.

     “What’s the matter Jakey?” she said, using his childhood nickname.  “A little speed bothering you?”

     “Well we are coming up on the Casner curve.”

     The turn could be taken at maybe 30 mph; Penny was doing close to 60 as they entered it.  But just as Jake started to think that they, and the Auburn, were simply going to fly off the road and into an early grave, Penny stabbed at the brakes, put the clutch in, and goosed the gas pedal to about 3000 RPMs.  She then grabbed the wheel hard to the right, raced the engine to the red line of 6000 RPMs, and put the car back into 3rd gear.  With way too much torque for the gear to handle, the rear wheels promptly broke away and lost traction on the road.  The car began a slow, sickening drift on all four wheels, into the left lane, and over to the edge of the road where there was nothing but loose gravel.  But at the precise apex of the curve, Penny double clutched, unloading all the remaining engine torque, snapped the wheel back hard to its straight position, stomped on the gas, and went into 4th gear.  Now aimed at the straightaway after the curve, the Speedster abruptly regained its footing and shot forward in a perfectly straight line through the rest of the curve, and back into the right lane.  Penny blasted on down the highway, turning to Jake a mile later.  “Just so you know,” she said, “You’re not the only one who knows how to handle a fast machine.”  Then they drove on in silence until they reached the elegant reception hall.

     When they arrived, Penny literally flipped the keys to the valet and stalked off alone into the building where she quickly ensconced herself with her friends.  Jake forlornly looked after her.  Well, he thought, the girl can drive, I’ll give her that.  As Jake made his way into the regal building, he found it impossible not to be impressed with the sumptuous setting, the stately colonnades lining each of the huge hall’s wings, the glittering assemblage of the well-to-do in their tuxedos and gowns, the full orchestra playing the latest jazz tunes.  He was in the process of absent-mindedly making his way over to a group of men he knew, when their leader, Gregory Jenkins, the scion of yet another elite family, accosted him:  “Jake!  Old buddy!  How’s it hangin’ fella!”

     “Well,” said Jake, “the last time I checked, it was just fine.”

     “And when was that?  One minute ago?  Ha ha.”  Jenkins made a face for the benefit of his crew.

     “Seriously, Jake, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”  As if on cue, the rest of the group dispersed.  Jenkins drew Jake in with one arm around his shoulder and launched into a monologue consisting of vague circumlocutions and veiled references.  Jake was only half-listening, until Jenkins concluded: “So anyway, I hope you’ve moved your money into things that are a little less volatile because we’re starting our little wake-up call in a few days.”

     “Wait.  What did you just say?” Jake regained his focus.

     “I told you.  It’s all been arranged.  The Mexicans are going to stage a little border crossing.  No big deal.  California National Guard will say ‘boo’ and they’ll go back.  Me and the boys think we can use the uproar to show that California is not protected by the US government and so we need our independence to raise a defense force to make our borders safe.  We don’t have the Governor on board yet, but one of the political hacks we have in our pocket will introduce legislation the day after the so-called attack that would create an independent California.  Think of the possibilities Jake!”

     “You’re crazy.  Do you have any idea how dangerous this is, not to mention irresponsible?”  His voice rose, “And what gives you the right to force a decision that way?”

     Jenkins frowned.  “Jake, take a look around and wise up.  It’s people like us who built this state.  We assume all the risks; we deserve to be in control.  And then take a look at yourself:  The war ended 12 years ago, and here you are wearing some uniform.  You can’t play soldier boy forever.  It’s time to grow up.”  He snapped his fingers at a nearby server.  “Boy, get my friend a drink, a stiff one, it’ll help him think, which he’s having trouble doing.  So long Jake.”

     Sometime later, Jake, his head spinning, and not just from the effect of the mighty bourbon and branch that he downed, wandered through the French doors between two columns and stepped out onto the portico beyond.  He immediately spotted Penny standing alone by the balustrade gazing over the nighttime scene in the valley.  He approached her, and, touching her lightly on the shoulder, seemed to startle her out of a reverie.

     “Penny, I apologize for what I said in the car.  I mean it; I was way out of line.”

     “Jake, I’m not mad anymore.”  The wistful smile he saw in the hanger a few days earlier returned.  “It’s just that you don’t realize how much things have changed.  I was only thirteen when you went away to France.  But that was twelve years ago Jake!  I’m grown up now.”

     Jake could see it was true.  She continued:  “I know you were only twenty-two when you graduated and went into the service.  But how did you get through flight training so fast?  You were flying combat missions in the summer of ’18.”

     “Well, my Dad pulled some strings for me,” he admitted.  “But I already knew how to fly, and the Allies were desperate for pilots, so they rushed me through flight school.”

     There was a silence for a moment.  Then Jake spoke up. “Penny, I learned a lot of things tonight I was not aware of.  And I think things are going to get interesting, and not in a good way.  I may be called upon to serve again, and you know, I just might need your help.”

     “You can count on me Jake, you know that.”