The Secret Stronghold of Fu Manchu
Somewhere in the mountains of Southern China
October 15th, 1939
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Chek marched with proud, resonating steps over the sheer gray stone slabs that formed the floor of Fu Manchu's depressing "throne room". Everything here was gray, except darkened and tattered war-banners which hanged in rows on the walls. Once they had shone with bright colours and martial pride, but now they were dulled by defeat, dust and years of display. Burning torches provided a weak lurid illumination that did little to ease the shadowed gloom of the stronghold. As always, howling mountain winds echoed through the dusty and deserted halls of the stronghold, sounding like the shrill screams of the damned.
Fu Manchu, as usual dressed in a yellow Mandarin's robe with the rampant Manchu dragon in blue on his chest, leaned forward on his throne and observed the approach of his lackey. After the defeats in spring and summer, when Shanghai and even Nanjing had fallen to the Japanese enemy, Chiang had crawled over the floor on his hands and knees, imploring Fu Manchu's mercy, however pointless he must have known that to be. In the event, Chiang had been in no real danger, because Fu Manchu was shrewd enough to see that the loss of these cities, and the swelling bridge-head in southern China contributed to debilitate the Japanese front in the decisive theatre of war, Manchuria, just as the fear-stricken Chiang had tried to explain. Thus, Fu had insulted, humiliated and threatened the hapless Generalissimo just to keep him in his place, but in truth he was always well pleased with the bold strategy he pursued. And now, apparently, he had the best possible news, or he wouldn't be walking so proud. That was excellent, because the situation in Europe was maturing nicely.
The absence of Fah Loo Sue hadn't had too nefarious consequences, since she had left her creation, the despicable Dr Morrell with standing orders, and the wretch, being a conscious slave to her will, happily accepted new ones from the Lord of The Si-Fan even without the need to invoke any hypnotic coercion. This had come in very handy, since Morrell had been able to report in detail about the plan conceived by Lt General von Manstein for the German campaign in the west. It was brilliant, and would undoubtedly have led to a decisive German victory over France, after which Britain would probably accept some sort of settlement. That, of course, was unacceptable. Fu Manchu wanted the nations of Europe, and Britain especially, fully engaged against each other for some years to come, and if possible he wanted to draw America into the fray too. Fortunately it had been easy enough to order Morrell to whisper in Hitler's ear that the plan had to be squashed, and at present the German Wehrmacht was planning for an Autumn and Winter campaign in France and the Low Countries along the lines of the old Schlieffen plan. This would most probably lead to a repetition of the stalemate of the Great War. All in all, Fu Manchu thought, he had no great need of his daughter any more, which was why he had decided to let her languish in a Moscow prison.
It was unfortunate, of course, that the agents Reitsch and Skorzeny had become inoperative, but Morrell was the one of Fah Loo Sue's agents that was still crucial to Fu Manchu's plan. Loosing the other two was a small price to pay to eliminate well in advance any threat that Fah Loo Sue might come to represent to his leadership over the Si-Fan. Hannah Reitsch had received specific hypnotic orders for each mission, and although still slave to his daughters will, there was no way for Fu Manchu to order her, since he didn't know the hypnotic code words to command her. As for the SS-man, Skorzeny, he had made abundantly clear to the pretended Si-Fan liaison (who had barely escaped with his life) that he would obey orders only from his mistress Fah Loo Sue, and any other Si-Fan acolyte could damn well go and... the Austrian's suggestions had been as obscene as physically impossible to carry out for any one not grotesquely malformed. A pity, Fu Manchu though, but in any case, once he had left the Führer's immediate entourage and gone away to the front with his unit, Skorzeny's utility had declined sharply so it was no great loss. Fu Manchu had decided to remove them both from the scene in order to avoid any complications. In the case of Skorzeny, since he was now leading a combat unit Fu had seen no reason to do anything at all for the moment, since there was an excellent opportunity that he might be killed in action. Otherwise... something would have to be done. And as for Hannah Reitsch, nothing could have been easier than to have Morrell make Hitler approve her request for transfer to a combat squadron. The odds against her living for very long there well tall. She was, after all, nothing but an ordinary woman, playing in a men's war.
All these things crossed through Fu Manchu's mind as Chiang Kai-Chek, in full dress uniform, goose stepped his way across the echoing void of the throne room until finally he stopped at the first of the stone steps that led up to the throne podium of Fu Manchu, bowed deeply, removed his uniform cap and tucked it under his arm.
'Master, I come to report great victories!'
'Then by all means please do so Chiang, and don't keep your Master waiting with your inane chatter!'
Chiang flinched visibly at the rebuke, which made Fu Manchu's lips curve slightly in a cruel smile. It was always a good idea not to let the servants get to full of themselves, lest they forget who was the Master.
'Of course, My Lord. During this autumn, as you well know, we have counterattacked in the south, and finally the enemy bridgehead has been wiped out entirely! The Japanese now hold only the island of Hainan in that sector. Furthermore, our proud capital of Nanjing has been recaptured once more, so that the Japanese are now bottled up only in Shanghai. But best of all - our armies in Manchuria have gone from victory to victory. We have cleared Manchuria from Japanese troops, and only yesterday my Government have officially re-incorporated the homeland of your Imperial ancestors into the Republic of China. Furthermore, we have broken through the Japanese Yalu-front and as we speak, my divisions are pushing into to Korea.'
'And the Japanese reaction?' Fu Manchu, asked as if these extraordinary news were nothing more than what should be expected.
Chiang smiled triumphantly. 'My Lord... they have asked us for a ceasefire and what terms we require for a negotiated peace! You have won, Master, you have beaten the Empire of Japan!'
'I'm not quite done with the Japanese yet, Chiang!' Fu purred. 'There will be no ceasefire - keep advancing into Korea, show no mercy! And see what you can do about kicking the Japanese out of Hainan and Shanghai.'
'But Master!' Chiang exclaimed, horrified. 'What more can we hope to achieve? We can never touch the Home Islands, the Imperial Navy owns the seas. What few ships we had were sunk years ago, as you well know! Shouldn't we try to profit from these successes to settle things with the Japanese to our advantage? We’ll get Manchuria for sure, have them evacuate the mainland, probably Hainan as well...'
'Silence, cur!' Fu Manchu roared, rising from his stone throne. 'I think you forget your place! You presume to lecture ME about the art of diplomacy? You worm, you whelp! I negotiated the fate of Empires before your bitch mother conceived you! On your knees!'
Deathly pale, both from anger and fear, Chiang threw himself on his face, groveling before his terrible Master. 'Forgive my impertinence Master! Of course you know best, I should have known better!'
'Well, at least you can show proper respect. Stand up, your crawling disgusts me, and in fact you're not wrong in your protestations. We ARE going to negotiate with the Japanese, but not the way they would like. We'll refuse to deal with anyone but Emperor Showa himself.'
'They'll never agree to that!' Chiang exclaimed while he picked up the pieces of his dignity and climbed to his feet. 'The Emperor of Japan will never agree to meet with me, a lowly President, on equal terms! Or if he does, his government won't let him.'
'Ah, but you see, it is not you who we will send to discuss with Hirohito. There's one Chinese that he cannot refuse to meet face to face: the Emperor of China is his equal, or as near enough as any human being can be.'
'There IS no Emperor of China!' Chiang protested, some defiance creeping back into his voice.
Fu Manchu remained mild, however. 'Not at present, no. But now that we have re-incorporated Manchukuo as a province of China, what's to prevent us from reinstating Pu Yi as Emperor and reestablish the Empire? They could not refuse Pu Yi, Hirohito has even met with him before, when he was just a glorified lackey.'
'But... but... would you trust Pu Yi to negotiate for us, Master? As you say, he was a lackey for the Japanese! How could we trust him?'
'Oh, I'd trust him with my own life, Chiang. After all, he's family isn't he?' Fu Manchu turned to a hooded servant who was standing next to the throne with his arms crossed and tugged into the sleeves of his black robes. 'Send in Prince Pu Yi, at once!'
The servant bowed and scurried of, soon returning with a middle-aged Asian of serene expression and stately walk. Like Fu Manchu he wore silk robes but his were Imperial Red, and the Manchu Dragon on his chest was embroided in thread of gold.
'Ah, your Highness, come here and meet your future Prime Minister!' Fu Manchu exclaimed in a jovial, yet somehow sinister tone, as if every word said was a cruel mockery.
As Pu Yi approached, Chiang felt a chill travel down his spine. The former (and now apparently future) Emperor of China had the air of an automaton, barely conscious of his surroundings. Yet his eyes drew Chiang’s to them with an irresistible magnetism. Under a thin veil of transparent tissue, the emerald green flames of Hell danced in the eyes of Henry Pu Yi. Chiang looked back to Fu Manchu, then to Pu Yi and back again. Try as he might, he couldn't tell those two pairs of Devil Eyes apart...
