San Francisco, California
Viceroyalty of America, Pan-Asian Empire
Sunday, September 2nd 1940
The grand ballroom of the Palace Hotel shone with gold; panels bright with gilt, golden draperies, mirrors with gilded frames. The marble floor was gilded too, and covered in thick slabs of glass. Hannah and Indy walked through the grand room, their hands and feet chained, and surrounded by soldiers of the Viceroy’s Own Imperial Guards Regiment. The soldiers wore outlandish uniforms mostly made of golden silk with bright red stripes and patches, gilded cuirasses and golden helmets adorned with precious stones. Their sabres and rifles were polished steel though, and dreadfully functional.
Having reached the end of the room, the captives stood at the foot of a high podium, on which was placed a great golden throne. On it sat the Golden Master himself, the Viceroy of America, the Lord of Xanadu – Siwan Khan!
He leaned forward, a cruel smile revealing rows of even teeth. His golden robes, pantaloons and soft boots, covered up any sign of his prosthetic mechanical leg.
‘Finally we come face to face, Dr Jones!’ he said grandly, and rose from his seat. The movement was fluid, without strain. When he descended the stairs, only a very slight unevenness in his posture betrayed his mutilation. ‘Long have I longed to talk to you, who alone among your countrymen understand the roots of my greatness!’
‘Indeed, Viceroy, and only now do I perceive the limits of your ruthlessness!’ Indy declared in dramatic tones, to match Siwan Khan’s bombastic speech. ‘Your greatest evil has not been unleashed upon hapless America, but upon this unhappy hall – seriously, Mr—what the heck were you thinking? Your interior decoration gives kitsch a bad name!’
Hannah guffawed while Siwan roared with fury and delivered a stinging open-handed blow to Indy’s face. It was no token slap – the archaeologist stumbled backward and dropped to a knee, his vision swimming.
‘Silence, buffoon!’ the Golden Master screeched, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘What do I have to do to you Americans before you take me seriously? I have devastated your impotent armies, swatted your planes from the skies and taken your cities, your homes, your fields, your cattle, your women…’
‘Overcompensating somewhat,
Ja?’ Hannah interjected, joining Indy’s game. ‘Never easy to live with a small
schwanz!’
Now it was her turn to be felled by a savage blow. Indy moved as if to strike the Viceroy but Siwan’s guards clobbered him with rifle butts until he was on the floor beside Hannah.
Siwan’s screamed, holding his head with both hands. ‘Harlot! Filth! Scum! Oh GODS how I hate your entire wretched race! But I’ll show you, I’ll show you ALL! Maps!’
One of the guards stepped next to the wall beside the throne and pulled away a stretch of golden silk curtain. A huge wall map representing North America from northern Mexico to the southern half of Canada was revealed.
Siwan Khan walked next to the map and faced his prisoners. ‘Behold your country’s doom!’ he yelled, waving with his hand. ‘See; see how my armies have smashed your front from Denver to the Gulf of Mexico! Even now, my cavalry and my tanks rush for the Mississippi! Your craven soldiers run for their lives! My Chinese cavalry have taken up position along the northern front; see here how I push north towards the thin waist of Canada!’
Indy couldn’t know if the map was accurate – there really was no reason for Siwan Khan to tell them all this, but he seemed to be totally out of his mind. There were no apparent rational explanations to the pathetic outburst of bragging.
But
if the map was even remotely accurate, America was in truly dire straits. The Pan Asians had already reached the Mississippi at New Orleans during the last offensive, and now they had an armoured spearhead pushing north along the western shore of the river and another into northern Texas. While the US Armoured Corps and other units fought these two threats, the Pan-Asian 18th Army had broken out from eastern Colorado. Indy had been there for the beginning of that particular battle, so that at least was not pure fantasy. According to the map, waves of cavalry and infantry poured through the gap towards Tulsa, Oklahoma City and the Mississippi. The bulk of the US forces in Oklahoma and northern Texas risked encirclement, unless they could beat a hasty retreat and escape back across the great river before the door slammed shut behind them.
‘That… doesn’t look to good’, the archaeologist admitted in a grudging tone, all in order to keep the madman talking. ‘But America has come back from worse.’
‘Ha!’ the Viceroy shouted triumphantly. ‘Worse? The Heir of Genghis Khan is second to none as a warlord! When was it ever worse?’
‘War of 1812’, Indy countered easily. ‘The English even burnt down the White House, and still we came back in the end.’
Siwan Khan snorted in contempt. ‘If you had held in this battle, then you might still have had some hope, or if the British had sent most of their divisions to prop America up, instead of to India, which they are now loosing anyway. But now… better for you to lie down and die, and spare yourself the suffering of a hopeless struggle! America will be mine! Her lands, her riches, her women, all will belong to Siwan Khan!’
‘Even if you do, the Reich will still stand against you!’ Hannah shouted, flushing with anger. ‘The Führer will trample your worthless Empire under foot, barbarian!’
‘Ha!’ Siwan Khan laughed, finally having the conversation going the way he wanted. ‘My father and I will humble the vaunted German Reich as we’ve humbled America! Know that you were always very much the lesser threat, and to show your leader how little I fear him, I will possess one of his German women – you!’
‘What?!’ she asked, going white with anger. ‘You
schwanzlose hosenscheisser, I’d rather…’
‘Guards!’ Siwan ordered grandly, extending his right arm and pointing vaguely towards the great doors to the hall. ‘Take this German harlot away and prepare her – I’ve decided to add her to my stable of concubines!’
‘You must be kidding me!’ Indy muttered and without warning floored the nearest guard with a vicious right-left to his guts and face. Hannah kicked out the legs under one of the guards holding her, and punched the groin of the other. He went down, bent double and whimpering with pain.
The fight didn’t last long though. Siwan Khan flickered and disappeared as he clouded the vision of his enemies. In the next moment he dropped Indy with a chopping blow to his neck, and sent Hannah flying with an open-handed strike to her face.
‘Take them away!’ he ordered.
‘Wait! What are you going to do to Dr Jones, you bastard?’ Hannah shouted as the guards lifted her from the floor.
‘I?’ Siwan Khan answered, affecting a look of injured innocence. ‘Nothing, my dear! I would not dare touch even a hair on his head; His presence in Tokyo is required by Emperor Fu Manchu himself!’
The guards dragged away the still struggling prisoners and Siwan Khan was left in relative solitude. Hardly had he sat down on his throne to ponder the future course of operations, when one of his gold-plated Guardsmen approached the dais of the Viceroy and kneeled.
‘Highness, I bring grave news!’
‘Quickly, fool! Speak!’ Siwan ordered with impatience.
The soldier obeyed, and when he was done, a roar of rage echoed through the hall.
