January 27, 1938
Hotel Haywood, Seathl
Rain Island Anarchcracy:

        “Late again,” the bear said disgustedly, looking accusingly at his wristwatch.
        Around him, diners enjoying the lunchtime fare at one of Seathl’s best hotels chatted over their meals, their talk blending with the clatter of flatware against china and the soft music to effectively mask most quiet conversations. 
        It was a good place for a quiet meeting.
        He sighed and turned to the canine across from him.  “I’m sorry, sir.  May I be excused to see what’s keeping them?”
        The canine, a slightly-built Pekingese in a fashionable but ill-fitting suit, smiled and nodded.  “Yes, you may, sir,” he said quietly, and as the bear stood up and walked out of the restaurant he went back to savoring his stir-fried beef and broccoli.
        The bear grumbled as he walked out to the front desk.  “Phone, please,” and when the clerk put the phone on the desk he snatched up the pawset and dialed the room number.  As it started to ring he muttered, “Come on, come on . . . “


        As the phone started to ring, a heap of tangled bed sheets stirred. 
        When it rang a second time, the heap of linen exploded into the unclothed forms of two furs.  One was a badger femme, tall and well-muscled; the other was a Catalina fox, slightly built and maybe coming up eye level to the badger’s cleavage if he stood tiptoe.
        Which he preferred, actually.
        “I GOT IT!”
        “I GOT IT!”
        There followed a pell-mell wrestling match in which both fought to see who could get to the phone first.  Finally the badger managed to sit on the smaller fox’s back and she snatched up the phone. 
        “Hello?” she asked sweetly, shifting position as the vulpine squirmed under her.  “Yes?  Well, dammit Carl, what do you think?  Hey, we’re on vacation, so . . . yes, that’s . . . oh?  He’s down there now?  Sweet Mother of Mercy, why didn’t you say . . .  Oh, you did. 
        “We’ll be down in a minute,” and Samantha Vreeland put the pawset back in its cradle and sat there, then wriggled her hips.  As the fox under her murred, she did it again.
        “Love it when you do that,” Max Vreeland said, his voice muffled by the wad of bed linen in his muzzle.
        “I know you do, but we have to get up and get downstairs.”
        “Why, Sam?  The house dick coming up again?  Is the fire escape still working?”
        “Because Carl is waiting for us; No; and Yes,” Sam ticked off the responses on her fingers.  She swatted the short fox on his rear end and stood up.  “We may want to get washed up first,” she said, sniffing delicately.


        “About time, you two,” Carl Masters said as the fox and the badger sauntered into the restaurant arm in arm.  “Take a seat,” and he rolled his eyes as the two tried to take the same chair, resulting in some good-natured pushing and shoving.
        “Carl, it’s good to see you.  I see the wife still picks your ties.  You’ll excuse us,” Sam said smoothly to the canine as Max found his own seat.  “We just got married, you see,” she said to the other fur at the table.  “I’m Sam Vreeland, this is my husband Max, and who might you be?”
        The Pekingese glanced at Carl and the bear replied, “This is General Wong Yubich – “
        “That’s not very nice,” Max said, looking up from his menu.
        “Hush.  That’s his name, Max,” Sam reproved.
        “Oh,” and the fox went back to his reading, while searching a nostril with one finger.
        “Will you stop that!” Carl said with some irritation, batting the fox’s paw away from his face.  “Look, the General has come all this way with a proposition for both of you.”
        “Tell him he’s not my type,” Max said, tossing the menu at the waitress after he’d given his order.  The waitress moved away before the fox could pinch her.  She had encountered him before, at lunch the previous day.
        “A business proposition,” Carl amplified in what appeared to be a monumentally patient tone.  “General?”
        “Thank you, Mr. Masters,” the Pekingese said quietly.  “I am here, Mrs. Vreeland, to hire you and your husband – “
        “I just said, I’m not your type.”
        “ – and such other furs as you may see fit to hire.”
        “Oh?”  The badger’s face took on an air of intense interest.  “What’s the job?”
        “You may have heard that the Japanese have invaded my country.  You have, perhaps, heard of what happened at Shanghai and Nanking.”
        Sam paused as she lit a cigarette, and nodded quietly.
        “We would like to put a stop to that if we can, but our navy, weak as it was, now sits in port or at the bottom of the sea.”
        “Gee, sucks to be you,” Max muttered.  The waitress arrived with a plate containing a Hamburger sandwich and some French-fried potatoes, which she set before the fox.  She placed a tall glass of Orca-Cola by the plate and retreated to the safety of the kitchen.
        “Max, will you shut up?” Carl said, yanking irritably at the lapels of his green jacket.  “Go on, General.”
        “Thank you.  We have acquired a submarine, which we can provide with weapons and supplies.  What we need are experienced officers and crew, and we will pay well,” the canine said softly. 
        Sam picked up a fork and tested the tines with the pad of her thumb.  “Perhaps we should go upstairs after we eat, and discuss this matter where we have more privacy,” she said, her tone matching the Chinese fur’s.
        Wong looked pleased.  “Madam, we should,” he said.  “The chef here is most skilled.”
        “I’d agree, but he overcooked the French-fried potatoes,” Max growled. 

        The rest of the meal was spent in relative silence while General Wong studied the two furs Masters had suggested to him.  At the hint that there was business in the offing, the woman had immediately become sober and calculating.  Her husband, on the other paw, remained flippant, almost insultingly so.  They were almost an illustration of yin and yang; short, tall, male, female.
        Intelligent, dumb as a compost heap.
        He had to remind himself that he was above such obsolete and bourgeois superstitions.  His instructions from both the Central Committee and the Kuomintang were explicit.
        Finally, with the dishes cleared away and the check paid, Masters stood up.  “The room is number 129.  Be there in five minutes, okay?”
        “Yeah, yeah,” Max said, the short fox folding his napkin into a rather rude origami.
        “We’ll be along, Carl,” Sam said.  “Max?  You coming?”
        “I didn’t want to, but you know, those new bicycle seats – “ The fox grinned cheekily at his wife, who smirked and rapped her knuckles against the top of his head.
        “Later, love.”  The badger and the fox left the restaurant and headed out to the small park on the hotel’s grounds.  They would give Masters and Wong a head start.

        Carl opened the door a crack, then opened it to admit the Vreelands.  “Come on in,” he said, “and sit down.  General?”
        Wong nodded.  As soon as the pair were seated he said, “Please, what we are about to discuss does not leave this room.  Unless you agree to that, we cannot continue.”
        “Why?  Afraid the Japanese have spies in Seathl?” Max asked.  “Of course, they do, you know; they’re holed up at the Spies Collective, playing against the Vostokies.  I hear the annual pinochle tournament’s to die for.”
        “Max, this is business,” Sam said, and the fox nodded. 
        “This is the submarine,” and the Pekingese passed around a slightly folded and dog-eared photograph.  The sub didn’t have the vertical bow of a British boat, but was severely thrust forward like a clipper ship.  A serrated wire guard rose above the prow of the vessel, and the conning tower had a small platform aft of it.
        “German boat?” Max asked in a much more professional tone.  “Doesn’t look Great War issue.”
        “It is called a Type VII.  We had bought it from the Germans over a year ago,” Wong explained, “and apart from a small maintenance crew we had not yet equipped it for sea trials when the Japanese invaded.
        “It is hidden, safe for now, with the same crew maintaining it.  There are torpedoes for it, and ammunition for the deck guns.”
        “But you need officers and crew,” Sam said.  “What about the Germans?”
        “They withdrew their training mission after the fall of Shanghai,” the canine replied.
        “Let me get this straight,” Max said suddenly, leaning forward and clasping his paws between his knees.  “You want to hire my wife and me, to put together a crew, then go out and kill Japanese?”
        “Er, yes.”
        The Catalina fox grinned widely.  “Why us?”
        “You two are currently cashiered – “
        “Cashiered?” Max asked.
        “Paws in the till,” Masters grumbled.
        “ - and out of the Syndicate so you have no current attachments,” Wong said.  “Also, you speak Chinese.  That will serve you well.”
        “Max was my second in command and firing officer in my last command,” Sam said.  She smiled slowly until her expression matched her husband’s.  “And I think you have yourself two officers, General.”
        The canine resisted the urge to sigh in relief.  These two had been starting to get on his nerves.  “Excellent,” he said.  “There are certain elements of the pay scheme I shall work out with Mr. Masters here.  You need to obtain who you need, and meet me here within two weeks.”  He gave the badger a slip of paper with an address written on it.  She read it over, then nodded and tossed it to Max, who stuffed it in his mouth and started chewing.
        “Deal.  We’ll be there.”
        “One more thing, you two,” and Carl gave Sam a piece of paper, heavy with a pendant seal.  It was written in both English and Chinese, and read in part:


The bearer of this letter has the leave of the Republic of China to move without let or hindrance to secure for redemption or to destroy any shipping, military or civilian, that is found in support of the hostile actions by the Empire of Japan against the Republic of China.
 
Chungking, 2 January 1938 AD
Chiang Kai-shek

        Sam read it over wordlessly, reread the part about payment, then nodded and stuck the letter in her pocket.


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