Day of the Destroyers Read online

  DAY OF THE DESTROYERS

  Jimmie Flint,AgentX-11must saveAmerica

  Concept by: Gary Phillips

  Edited by: Gary Phillips

  Cover Art: Fernando Ferreiro

  Cover Design: Erik Enervold/Simian Brothers Creative

  Day of theDestroyers©2015Moonstone Entertainment Publishing, Inc.,

  1128 S. State Street, Lockport, IL 60441.

  The Green Lama is©2015 by Kendra Crossen Burroughs. All Rights Reserved.

  The Green LamaTM is used by permission of Kendra Crossen Burroughs.

  Gray Face is©2015 by Gary Phillips. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.

  With the exception of review purposes, no reprinting of this publication, In print or

  digital form, is allowed without the express written permission of Moonstone

  Entertainment Publishing, Inc.

  Published byMoonstone, 1128 S. State Street, Lockport, IL 60441.

  Introduction

  SOMETIMES A STORY is so big that it takes pulp’s best and brightest to tackle it.

  In the case of Day of The Destroyers, that’s true not only for the characters who inhabit this book, but also for the creators behind the scenes who made it happen. I mean, not only does this titanic tale feature the likes of Jimmie Flint - Secret Agent X-11, but the Green Lama, the Phantom Detective, the Black Bat, and pulp newcomer, Gray Face (a character I’m certain we’ll be hearing more about in days to come) get in on the action.

  And that’s just the characters who appear in the book.

  The characters who put this book together reads like a veritable Who’s Who of New Pulp’s finest. If you’ve been reading any pulpy good yarns over the past decade, it’s a good bet you’re familiar with most, if not all, of these guys. Banded together from the four corners of the New Pulp landscape, Gary Phillips, Ron Fortier, Paul Bishop, Adam Lance Garcia, Eric Fein, Tommy Hancock, Aaron Shaps, and Joe Gentile (amazing talents, the lot of ‘em) joined forces to craft this story that’s based on true events.

  You heard that right.

  Day of The Destroyers reaches back through the pages of history to an actual plot to overthrow the United States government during the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

  Like most good storytellers, the pulpsters used this plot as a starting point for this amazing adventure as Jimmie Flint, the secret agent known as X-11, finds himself thrust into a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the country that he loves. Even a skilled agent knows he can’t do everything on his own. Lucky for Flint, a few others have noticed trouble brewing.

  One of the things that sets this anthology apart from the pack is that although it features 12 action-packed stories, it’s really 12 action-packed chapters in one big tale. Kudos to the team for making the transition from one story to the next as smooth as silk. You might actually forget you’re reading an anthology.

  I won’t bother spoiling the story for you because there’s some great reading ahead. What I will say is that I count myself fortunate to have gotten an advanced look at this story and I look forward to seeing where these characters go from her. This being the pulps, it’s a good bet there’s another menace waiting around the next corner waiting to strike.

  Lucky for us, some of pulp’s finest are there to save the day.

  Bobby Nash

  Bethlehem, Georgia

  How we Got Here

  SPECULATION that a grouping of moneyed and political interests sought to overthrow the New Deal presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the so-called Business Plot, has been the inspiration for various books (The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis to name two) and even the subject of a three-part story arc of the 1976 television show City Of Angels, about L.A. private eye Jake Axminster and his thwarting of “The November Plan.” The basis for these and other scenarios is based on fact.

  In 1934 decorated war hero, retired Major General Smedley Butler testified to a congressional committee that he’d been approached by a representative of this Business Plot, some of whom were part of an entity called the American Liberty League – mentioned in the recent seven-part Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts seen on PBS – to head their efforts at a violent coup d’etat of FDR and his administration.

  How far were these extremists were willing to go no one can accurately state. But what was clear was that Butler’s words were the key ingredients for whipping up a grand adventure. It would make for great pulp. I got to thinking then what if there was a super spy, the granddaddy of them all, and he was set in motion across this country during the Great Depression to do battle against theses forces not only seeking to take out FDR, but establish iron rule. Joe Gentile thought it was a good idea too. This my friends brings us to Day of the Destroyers, whereon Jimmie Flint, secret agent X-11 of the Intelligence Service Command wages might war against the Medusa Council – not an external threat, but a seditionist force from within

  In the linked stories you’ll read in this high voltage volume, the redoubtable Flint is aided by the likes of the Green Lama, the Phantom Detective, the Black Bat, and introducing a new pulp character, Gray Face. The original Devil Dog himself, General Butler, makes an appearance as does another real life character, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. Much thanks to all the writers who have made Day of the Destroyers come alive on the following pages.

  Enjoy.

  Gary Phillips

  Los Angeles

  Prologue: The Wildhorn Sanction

  by Gary Phillips

  THE ICE AXE whistled through the air and missed secret agent Jimmie Flint’s temple by the merest of inches. He reared back avoiding the tip, simultaneously bringing up his leg and pivoting on his other foot. He violently swiped the side of his boot alongside his attacker’s head. The man grunted and dropped to a knee, spitting crimson from his mouth onto the white pristine snow. Flint, not wasting any movements, bent forward and turning his torso, sliced a kidney blow with the flat of his hand against the second assailant’s side. This one gritted his teeth and lashed out with the pointed crampon clamped onto his boot to aid in climbing. The tips gashed Flint’s lower leg, cutting the flesh underneath his snow suit.

  He ignored the pain and reacted quickly. He grabbed the man’s aloft leg, making him hobble backward on his other leg. He then punched the man’s knee, cracking the femur.

  “Bastard,” the man swore in French.

  Flint grinned mirthlessly and upended the man onto his backside while the first one was in motion again. He once more swung the ice axe. This time he’d brought it back over his shoulder and came down with it in an arc. Flint launched himself in a flying tackle he’d first perfected playing football in his student days at Yale. The two fell to the snow which covered the slope where the three fought. It was not a wide outcropping on Wildhorn mountain. They grappled and tore at each other and Flint, also known as secret agent X-11, could hear the second man crunching over to them. Fortunately his advance was slowed due to his fractured knee.

  The one underneath him socked Flint in the jaw and he was momentarily dazed. But he willed himself out of it and timing his move, rolled, holding onto the parka of the man who hit him. This got them both on their sides just as the other man brought his ice axe down, intended for Flint’s back. Instead the axe was buried in the upper arm of his compatriot.

  The injured man swore a stream in French as the other man extracted the axe from the pulsing wound. He wasn’t bothering placating his fellow assassin. He had Flint to deal with and was going to do his job.

  “Come here, pretty boy,” the man said in French, his breath frigid bursts in the cold air. He held the axe by two hands like a batter waiting for the right pitch. He advanced on the unarmed operative who had his hands poised in a defensive mode.

  The head of the axe whispered through the air again and Flint dived out of the way in a roll and came up on his feet. This killer was faster than the other one and was on X-11 in a flash. The axe tip came at his eye and Flint clamped a gloved hand around the shaft. The other man, taller and heavier, pressed his attack and both men stumbled and slipped off the edge of the slope.

  The axe wielder drove the business end of his tool into the side of the mountain, gaining a hold as loose rocks and ice fell away. Jimmie Flint had grabbed the rope pinioned into the rock face. The pinion was coming lose. He was above the axe man, his feet dangling in reach of the other man.

  “Who’s pretty now?” The killer taunted, noting the steel pinion coming free of the mountain. He began pulling himself up on the axe handle.

  “Keep watching,” the secret agent answered in French, among the several languages he spoke. He propped a foot against the rock face to leverage his body upward.

  “Not so fast, my friend.” The axe man grabbed at Flint’s calf, getting a grip. “I think I’ll use you as my ladder,” he joked grimly.

  “Not today,” Flint replied as he stuck a karate blow with the edge of his hand on the man’s wrist.

  Reflexively he let go and Flint allowed himself to slip some on the rope to put his body in range. He kicked at the man who was attempting to clamber up again. The heel of his boot with its ice cleats smacked the man’s chin once, twice, and trying to avoid a third strike, he’d put up an arm to block the strike. Instead Flint brought his foot down on top of the protruding axe head. As the man grabbed at the agent’s lower legs o
nce more, the axe came loose and he fell to this death on the frozen rocks hundreds of feet below, screaming obscenities as he did so until his body impacted and broke violently.

  His features matching the bleakness of his surroundings, Jimmie Flint looked down then he righted himself. He was climbing up the rope when the pinion also came free. He reached up as gravity threatened to carry him down and away as well. He got finger tips hold on the ledge, his body banging against the side of the mountain. The breath knocked out of him, he managed to keep his precarious grip. Straining, the secret agent gathered his wits and pulled himself back onto the slope. The other man struck by the axe had departed, but there were no drops of blood in the snow. He must have dressed his wound X-11 surmised. His own leg wound had stopped bleeding beneath his clothing.

  A wind started up, helping to erase the wounded man’s tracks. But Flint had a good idea where he was headed. There would be no radio communication on this mountain and he’d have to report back in person. But you needed both hands to get down a mountain like this – not as much as getting up a mountain, but being one-handed would slow him some. Too, he also had a bum knee now, also slowing his descent.

  Flint sighed and retrieved the pack he’d discarded when the two had first ambushed him. He’d catch up to the Medusa Council’s remaining emissary soon he knew. As he trudged off, he reflected it was one thing to kill in the heat of a fight, another to have to dispatch someone cold-bloodedly. But do it he would. Not every member of the Intelligence Service Command had X status because not everyone was cut out to be ruthless when necessary. Jimmie Flint had his hesitations, but had long ago learned to compartmentalize his emotions. You didn’t last long in the field if you didn’t.

  • • •

  The village at the foot of Wildhorn mountain was called Zindelwald. With its classic Swiss architecture from another time period, its ski chalets and a 16th century castle perched at the foot of a snowy Bernise Alps bluff, the hamlet seemed like a place only found in a fairy tale. Officially Switzerland had a parliamentary governing structure but unofficially, X-11 had been briefed, Zindelwald was the barony of Doctor Baron Milius Wildhorn, whose family settled this area two centuries ago. Wildhorn castle was Jimmie Flint’s destination. Dr. Wildhorn was a biologist by training and a reputed member of the Medusa Council.

  Over the last few years the Council’s name had come up in several ISC operations. There was little hard data on the group though it was known their initial membership was not bound by nationality or ideology per se. His agency had presented the War Department with reports of former Soviet generals and supposedly disappeared Nazi manufacturers sitting around its conference tables. A great deal of espionage was having eyes and ears scattered across the globe and wading through stacks of reports from these types of librarians his chief Z-7 called them.

  In several well-lit and ventilated rooms in nondescript buildings in places like Coffeyville, Kansas and Long Beach, California, the ISC employed people, mostly women of a certain age, spinsters who were not distracted by matters of family or a love life, who did nothing all day but read through and glean any pertinent information from wire service clippings and reports that were sometimes transmitted in code. One such librarian, as these gleaners were euphemistically called, had surfaced a conversation overheard by an ISC operative traveling through Switzerland a week ago on her way to another assignment. The agent had been intrigued by a conversation between two Swiss cantonal policemen in a tavern.

  Seems the two officers had encountered four nude men prancing about in the snow, oblivious to the frigid temperature and the frostbite evidenced on their extremities. Subsequently after being hauled in, and the loss of fingers and toes, the men decried any knowledge of why they had behaved that way. Two of them had done carpentry work recently for the baron. Additionally his name had come up before in connection to the Medusa Council. Thereafter Flint had been dispatched.

  “Let me help you with that,” a disguised X-11 said in German to the older man loading his wooden cart. Two stout horses were tethered to the cart being loaded with frozen sides of beef and swine.

  “Thank you, young man,” the general store owner said. The two stood on the side of the man’s shop. “You cannot imagine how hard it is to import these meats from across the border but the baron likes to keep his staff happy.” He chuckled. “Especially that brute of a Serbian bodyguard of his, Daska.”

  “I imagine the baron pays well,” Flint said eagerly, like a man hungry for a big pay off.

  “Indeed,” the proprietor said, “and in advance.” The meat loaded, the older man cinched his collar around his neck as a snow flurry started up again. He looked forlornly to the heavens.

  “A good day to be inside, warming your hands by the fire. Maybe with a glass of sherry or two.”

  “But I must make this delivery.”

  Flint paused for effect. “I want a job with the baron. Let me make the delivery.”

  The older man eyed him warily. Flint produced a couple of folded marks in his gloved fingers. “I won’t steal your meat.”

  The other man took the money. “As we discussed, it’s the baron’s supply. You would do wise to do nothing but make the delivery.”

  “Believe me, good sir, my only intention is to be in his castle.”

  The older man smiled thinly beneath the ice particles gathering on the ends of his gray moustache. Without another word, he turned, and rubbing his gloved hands together went back into the confines of his shop.

  Flint adjusted the workman’s cap he wore and guided the horses and cart to Wildhorn Castle. The snowfall had abated by the time he reached the outer gates some forty minutes later.

  “Where’s Mr. Henchoz?” One of the guards asked him, leaning out of an upper window in the gatehouse.

  “Staying out of this weather,” Flint replied, looking up at the man.

  The guard nodded and he worked a lever to open the electric powered double wrought iron gates. “I’ll have Cara show you where to bring the meat into the kitchen,” he added, then speaking into an intercom.

  Flint touched his cap’s brim and guided the cart into the bailey, the open area, of the castle’s grounds. There were several modern touches evident, including a covered car port where he saw a Citroën and a Mercedes parked. A strawberry blonde pretty woman in a stained white full apron and men’s dark trousers waved at him from a doorway in the keep, the castle’s main building.

  “You can bring the carcasses in this way,” she said in accented German..

  “French?” he guessed as he brought in one of the wrapped sides of beef.

  “You have a good ear and broad shoulders,” she quipped, noting his ease at carrying the meat.

  “I bet you tell all the delivery men that.”

  She smiled sweetly and showed him the way to a small walk-in meat locker in the large kitchen. They made small talk as he went about his task. He was also was able to figure out how he would sneak back in once he left.

  “Well, finished so soon, huh?” Cara asked. Idly she moved a lock of her hair out of her face.

  “Afraid so.” He wiped his hands on an offered rag. “But maybe you’ll be seeing more of me sooner.”

  “Maybe.” She let her gaze linger for more than a moment then broke it off as he waved good-bye.

  Flint drove the cart away from the castle and turned the horses when he reached a natural bend in the road. He climbed a hill that afforded a view of the easterly side of the castle. Looking down, he patted one of the horses as he looped their reigns around a tuft of a bush sticking defiantly out of the snow. From this angle he could see a twin engine French Amiot 143 airplane outfitted with wheel skis. It was parked at the rear of the castle beyond the gate and through his collapsible spy glass, he watched two men servicing the plane. One was pumping oil into a pre-heater. The device heated the oil, thick from the cold, to the proper viscosity to flow in the plane’s engines.

  Secret Agent X-11 descended the hill and readying himself, launched into space and landed atop the venting over the meat locker he’d been in below. The design of the castle was such that there were various terraces of the keep’s levels. Using an acid dispensed through the nib of a disguised fountain pen, Jimmie Flint got one of the grates over the venting lose. He set that aside and clambered inside.