The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Read online

  Dedication

  Prelude: Red Handed, 1935

  Part 1: Conspiracies

  Chapter 1: Diaspora, 1939

  Chapter 2: The Twenty-Two

  Chapter 3: Guilt

  Chapter 4: Homecoming

  Chapter 5: Dark Tidings

  Chapter 6: The Lost Ones

  Part 2: Collapse

  Chapter 7: The Hunt

  Chapter 8: Meetings

  Chapter 9: Capture

  Chapter 10: Absence

  Chapter 11: Interrogation

  Chapter 12: Before the Storm

  Chapter 13: Omega Hour

  Part 3: Corruption

  Chapter 14: Downfall

  Chapter 15: The Crimson Hand’s Revenge

  Chapter 16: The Murder of Jethro Dumont

  Chapter 17: Reaping

  Chapter 18: Stormfront

  Chapter 19: Beneath The Mountain

  Part 4: Carnage

  Chapter 20: Chaos Reigns

  Chapter 21: Succession & Legacies

  The Green Lama Chronology

  THE GREEN LAMATM: CRIMSON CIRCLE

  by Adam Lance Garcia

  Copyright © 2015 by Kendra Crossen Burroughs. All Rights Reserved.

  The Green Lama™ is used by permission of Kendra Crossen Burroughs.

  Dedication

  For my mother, who showed me that the greatest heroes are women.

  Prelude: Red Handed, 1935

  HIS EYES cracked open, black and white spots slowly forming into color and light. A bare bulb sent a harsh cone of illumination over the table in the center of the room, the walls hidden in darkness. There was a vacant seat across from him; the leather cushion so worn down from constant use it had begun to sprout thick black hairs at the edges. His head throbbed, radiating pain worse than the arthritis in his right hand, sending bullets down his spine. Reaching over to crack his knuckles, he found both wrists shackled to the chair, the cold metal stinging skin. Panic clamped down on his throat and he let out a soft whimper as he struggled against his bindings. Then, as he began to remember the night’s events, his body sank back into his seat, a tremendous wave of disappointment washing over him. How had it gone so wrong, he wondered? So many years of planning, all swept away in a single night by, of all things, some Buddhist bastard dressed in jade. Anger boiled behind his eyes. No matter how long it would take, he would repay the Green Lama in kind.

  A door opened silently behind him, a tall, broad shadow appearing on the wall in front of him. “Dr. Frank Pelham,” the shadow growled, a dog at the edge of its leash. “Or should I say, ‘the Crimson Hand.’”

  A smile teased at the corner of Pelham’s lips. “The Crimson Hand,” how he loved the sound of it. Pelham half-turned his head toward the door and allowed himself a toothy grin, suddenly feeling more like the mastermind he really was. “One and the same. I’d get up and shake your hand but,” he rattled his handcuffs, “I’m a little tied up.”

  The door closed and a thick manila folder dropped onto the table. “Lieutenant John Caraway,” the barrel-chested detective introduced himself, sitting down in the worn chair across from Pelham. His uniform was unkempt—Pelham guessed he had slept in it more than a few times. “I suppose I should thank you, Dr. Pelham. Because of you—and the Green Lama—I’m up for a promotion of sorts. They’re giving me something called the Special Crime Squad,” Caraway said. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” When Pelham didn’t respond Caraway reached over and flipped open the folder to the top sheet. “I’ve gotta be honest with ya, Doc, with a resume as impressive as yours, I never woulda figured ya for the ‘take-over-the-world’ type. But I guess people like to surprise ya.”

  Pelham responded with a nonchalant shrug. “‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’”

  “You are small,” Caraway retorted, his eyes scanning over the folder’s contents. “Your rap sheet on the other hand... Where do we begin? The robbery of the entire town of Norton, New York? Kidnapping of Dr. Valco, Evangl Stewart and Gary Brown? The attack on Cleveland? That was a mess of a day from what I hear. Why you’d choose Cleveland is beyond me… Or maybe we should start with the Tri-American plane you shot down?”

  “Did I now?” Pelham asked, leaning forward. “My memory is a little foggy. Tell me, Lieutenant, in that big pile of papers of yours is there anything resembling proof?”

  Caraway’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Or perhaps we can begin with the events of last night—” he said just as the door to the interrogation room burst open, sending a cold wave of air into the room. Blinking as his eyes struggled to adjust to the light, Caraway stared at the thin silhouette.

  “Lieutenant Caraway,” the silhouette said in a calm, bland voice. “Thank you, but I will take it from here.”

  “And you are…?” Caraway asked as the silhouette walked up next to Pelham in two smooth, silent steps. Pelham tried to screw his eyes up to catch a glimpse at the new visitor, but all he saw was the shadowed edge of a chin and a black tie.

  The silhouette took a long breath before he replied. “Above your pay grade, Lieutenant,” he said, sliding a folded sheet of paper across the table.

  “What the hell is this?” Caraway unfolded the letter and read over it before slamming his hand down, making Pelham jump in his seat. “This is bullshit! We’ll see what Commissioner Horton has to say about—”

  “Commissioner Horton is fully apprised of the situation,” the silhouette said, his icy voice sending chills down Pelham’s spine, gooseflesh spreading over his arms. But Caraway wasn’t intimidated, slowly standing so his powerful frame cast a heavy shadow over the table. His right hand was clenched, ready for a fight. The silhouette silently considered Caraway and sighed. “Lieutenant, my instructions come from the highest authority. In this instance, I want you to pretend you are talking to the voice of God and if you do not heed His word, I will ensure that His wrath is brought upon you. Do not worry, Lieutenant, I will only need a few minutes alone with your prisoner, and then it will be as if I was never here at all. Check with the Commissioner, you will see all is in order.”

  “You stay right here, and I’ll make sure this is all in ‘order,’” Caraway growled, storming out into the hallway. Later, when Commissioner Horton would ask him to describe the silhouetted man, Caraway would admit he never once saw the man’s face.

  “Dr. Pelham,” the silhouette said, closing the door behind Caraway. He walked over to the chair across from Pelham, his footsteps whispering against the floor. The man pulled the chair a few inches back from the table and sat down, his face just out of the bare bulb’s cone of light. The man crossed his legs and laced his fingers together; on his right middle finger was a silver ring with a golden Ω embossed in a field of black. “We have heard so much about you.”

  There was something about that voice, so unremarkable and cool. Pelham had heard voices like it before. It was the sort of voice Pelham thought he had when he was the Crimson Hand, but it had never been this bone-chilling. But there was something missing…

  There was no soul behind the man’s voice. This was the voice of a killer.

  “And you are?” Pelham whispered.

  “Technically speaking, Dr. Pelham, I am no one,” the silhouette said, smoothing out the wrinkles in his suit. “But for the purpose of our current discussion, you may call me Omega.”

  “How…” Pelham cleared his throat, “…ominous.”

  Omega let out a small, hollow laugh. “No more ominous than ‘the Crimson Hand.’”

  Pelham chuckled nervously. “Very true.” He opened and closed his right hand, working out the pain, reminding himself that as long as he could feel that, he was still alive.

&nbs
p; They sat in silence for several minutes. Pelham could hear his heartbeat thrum in his ears, moving in time with the slow clicks of the second hand on the wall clock. Minutes felt like hours as he strained to see the face beyond the shadowed veil. His muscles tensed up as Omega slowly reached into his coat pocket.

  “You don’t mind if I smoke,” Omega told Pelham, pulling out a thin, chrome cigarette case and a matchbook. The cigarette case, though elegant, was dented and scratched, as if it had been dropped out of a two-story window; the letter “X” engraved in the center.

  “Not at all,” Pelham replied, his voice no louder than a whisper, knowing full well he hadn’t been asked permission.

  Omega placed a cigarette in his mouth, clapped the case closed and struck a match, the small flame failing to reveal the mystery man’s identity. Omega shook out the match and took a long, slow drag of the cigarette, a sound that reminded Pelham of a snake moving through the weeds. “We have taken quite an interest in you, Dr. Pelham,” Omega said with dragon’s breath. He placed the case and matchbook back into his jacket pocket. “Long before you decided to get… theatrical.”

  Pelham raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “We,” Omega reiterated. “My predecessor would have probably been more discreet but we are short on time and neurosurgeons with your… diverse talents are so hard to come by in this day and age.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “A pity, really.”

  There was pounding at the door, the doorknob twisting uselessly back and forth. “Open up!” a muffled voice echoed through. “Open up! This is Commissioner Horton. Whoever you are, you are not authorized to be in there. Open this door immediately or we will come in there with force.”

  Pelham glanced back at the door; things were definitely not what they seemed. He sat up in his chair, hoping to exude some confidence, but his eyes only spoke of panic. He stared into Omega’s shadowed face. “Well, I can see this is something that goes well beyond the typical interrogation routine they show in the pictures, by God. So, why don’t we get right down to business?”

  “Yes…” Omega hissed, an audible smile; the red embers of his cigarette reflecting in the black pits of his eyes. “Why don’t we?”

  There was a loud pop! as the light bulb above them went out, drenching the room with darkness.

  Pelham couldn’t help but scream.

  Part 1: Conspiracies

  HOW I MET the Green Lama was pure happenstance, a coincidence of time and place. A moment earlier, a moment later, I would have spent my life in unassuming wealth, married to some moneyed buffoon, a third or fourth generation man-child so obsessed with his own visage I doubt he would have given me the time of day outside of some hoity-toity social affair. But as the Fates—if they exist, and I would like to think they do—deigned it, a simple visit to a family friend set in motion a series of events that would completely alter all that I knew of the world, revealing both the beauty and the darkness that envelops every moment.

  Because of the Green Lama I would find a love so substantial and complete it seemed there was nothing in this world that could stop us. There are plenty of poems about falling in love, but none of them could ever describe what it was like falling for Gary Brown. Nor am I a poet, so perhaps those words will never be said. All that mattered was that my love for Gary—and his for me—was the kind that... made us better.

  I began clipping newspapers after my first adventure with the Green Lama. I still have them all collected in a thick and yellowing binder I keep hidden in the basement safe. I read through them every so often, always in the basement, always with the door locked. I’m not exactly sure why. Sometimes I tell myself it’s because I don’t want Marie to find it. Other times it’s because I don’t want them to find it. But perhaps it’s because I just want to wrap myself up in the memories alone.

  The first is a headline from the Sun, (written in those big and bold block letters that always made me think someone was screaming while they typed it): CRIMSON HAND CAPTURED! Outside the most obvious points, the article itself was scant on details; and what details it had were mostly conjecture. There was no mention of the Green Lama because as far as the public knew it had been Lieutenant John Caraway who had taken down the mad Dr. Pelham. And for that matter, neither Dr. Valco, Gary, nor I graced the papers, which was for the best. I’m sure that had I been mentioned, my mother would have died of embarrassment.

  I try to remember what it felt like after that first adventure—if that’s the right word for it. I’ve never used any other word to describe it but I suppose it’s a misnomer. I spent so much of it tied to a chair watching some masked madman torture the man who would become my husband, I’m no longer certain I could ever describe it as an adventure. At the time it was terrifying, not knowing which moment would be your last, but afterward, the thrill of survival washed over me, and nothing seemed the same again. It was a drug, addicting to the point of maddening. So when the Green Lama asked me to help him with the Fifthers down in Hollywood, Florida, it was impossible for me to say no. And the more adventures (or cases, or mysteries, or whatever you call them) we went on, the harder it became to say no.

  In fact, I never did.

  The thing is, when we fought for him, it wasn’t out of some patriotic duty, nor was it because we lived for the adventure. We fought because we believed in him. It didn’t matter what face he had on, we all knew that however bad it got, the Green Lama would always be there to protect us, to save us when we needed him most.

  But those were naïve days. We were flying around with Peter Pan believing we’d never grow up, that Death would never find us. I look back and ask myself, if I had known how dark the world would become, how heavy the price our dalliances with heroism would be… would I have said “no” that first day?

  And the more I think about it, the less sure I am.

  What I’ve come to realize is life isn’t neat and simple. It’s not a road. It’s not left turn, right turn, and you find your destination. It’s a river. It starts small, a narrow creek, zigging and zagging through the forest. Then tributaries begin to run in at all angles, the creek becomes a stream, and the stream grows wider until the river spills out into an ocean full of storms.

  We saw the storm coming; at least, I’d like to think we did. We had weathered so many storms before, what was another? Batten down the hatches, lower the sails and head straight through. We’ll make it to the other side. But what we thought was a squall turned into a hurricane.

  Do I blame the Green Lama? I’m not sure that’s the right question. I don’t think there’s any one person who can be given fault. We all chose this life, even if we were all dragged into it. We always had the option to leave, but we stayed. We stayed and paid the price.

  And because of the Green Lama I would have love wrenched from my hands, a horror so indescribable it has taken me nearly two decades to set these words to paper. With the world teetering on the edge of atomic destruction, perhaps now is the time to face the pain, and tell the story of how my love, my life, my Gary died.

  Chapter 1: Diaspora, 1939

  THE EXPLOSION rocked the foundation, tearing open the side of the building, splattering brick, bone, and blood onto the street. Dust floated through the air like snowflakes on Christmas Eve, coating everything in white and silence. His ears ringing and his brain screaming inside his skull, John Caraway let out a rib-cracking cough as he shoved aside a fallen wooden beam. Wiping the soot from his eyes, he peeked around the corner of the shattered wall to look over his destruction. Bits and pieces of Nazi bodies littered the ruined lobby and somewhere beneath the rubble he could hear the cries of the dying. He wanted to say he’d never seen something like this before, but that would be a lie. He'd been in Berlin for nearly three months now and this had all become horribly routine. They called him der Fremde—The Stranger—and the devastation he had left in his wake had already become the stuff of legend.

  The things we do for our friends, he reflected as he spat a dirt-filled wad of
phlegm to the ground. He looked over to the small blonde woman huddled beside him, two young children wrapped in her arms; all three caked with dust. “Everybody okay? Ist irgendjemand verletzt?” he asked in heavily accented German.

  “Ja… Dürfen wir jetzt rauskommen?” the blonde woman asked, her voice trembling.

  It had taken Caraway nearly seven weeks to find her, an effort that left hundreds of Nazis dead and had drawn the attention of the Jewish Underground, who claimed to have anticipated his arrival. Caraway liked to think he could have done this all on his own, but had it not been for the Underground, he doubted they could have made it this far.

  “I think so.” He gave the woman a somber smile. “Let’s just pray the Underground got our exit ready. If they didn’t we’re up shit’s creek without a paddle. Wir sind jetzt sicher,” he added off her befuddled expression.

  She nodded, considering this. “John,” she began, struggling with her English, “it is possible…”

  “Yeah, well, anything’s possible, Helen.” He extended his hand. “Come on, before it’s too late—”

  “No, John, you do not understand…” she said deliberately, a schoolteacher instructing a poor student as he pulled her to her feet. “This—all of this—none of it was prophesized by Rabbi Brickman.”

  Caraway met her gaze, understanding her implication. “So, we’re in uncharted waters?”

  Helen nodded.

  “Great,” he said with a sigh as he drew his revolver. “Cover the children’s eyes. You don’t want them to see this. And whatever happens next, no matter what, keep moving. Don’t stop until we get the plane into the air. Do you understand? We have to get the plane into the air.”

  “Ja… Yes. In die Luft.”

  Caraway gave her a weak smile and then looked to the children, a boy and a girl, the boy reminding Caraway so much of their father, but with significantly more hair. He knelt down in front of them. “It’s going to be okay,” he lied to them as well as himself. “Just stay close to your mom and everything will be fine.”