Kill Fast
Disclaimer: No ownership of any of the Smallville or DC Comics characters is claimed. The exceptions are OCs: Hannah Calvin & Senator Jim Calvin, and Olle Jansk are my own creation. This story is fictional – any similarities to real people or events are co-incidences.
Summary: A Senator's daughter is assassinated, with clues pointing to Lx FIRESAFE – a new military contractor, when Lois calls in the Justice League to investigate. (Chlollie/Clois) Post season-10 finale. Rated M.
Kill Fast – Chapter 1
Sitting in the empty carriage, surrounded by faux plush red seats allied in red lines against her, she is playing on her little laptop. White earphones stop up her ears. As she plays Sniper IV, concentrating hard on killing the little figures popping up out of windows, garbage cans and cars, her blond head bobs along to Sanctuary by Alice Cooper.
She is so distracted that she does not notice the sudden silence and quiet in the carriage as the train comes to an unscheduled stop.
The bespectacled girl who leans over her screen, frantically killing with the strokes of her keys, does not sense the figure behind her until the last moment. A chance reflection gives too little warning – as she turns her head, a blade moves in for the blow from which there will be no return.
Blood spatters on the train window, as the laptop falls to the floor and the earphones silently playing a requiem.
Within moments the train continues its scheduled journey into the night.
As the first shift clattered onto the platform, cleaning gear in tow, the first rays of light were only just breaking through the cloud-filled sky.
Olle Jansk groaned at the flickering artificial light that was making his hang-over worse, as he straightened up from replacing a bin-liner. Moving forward through the carriage toward the next bin, he stumbled over an object onto the floor.
Twisting on the way down, Olle suddenly found himself face to face with a corpse, lying on a pool of dried blood.
Screaming out in shock, Olle pushed himself off the floor and out of the carriage – out into the grey morning light in search of his supervisor.
Much later, Olle found himself answering questions at the local county police department's leisure.
"So you didn't know that she was Senator Calvin's daughter?"
The Fed sitting opposite him across the desk in the small office looked tired and pissed off.
So he kept it short and sweet: "No".
The Fed took a call on his cell, muttering swear words under his breath.
Slamming the phone onto the desk, he looked up at Olle – "Okay, so you check out. Don't worry your visa's fine; just don't leave the country until this is wrapped up."
Standing up to leave, he looked back at the Finnish student. According to his tutor at West Texas U. Olle was hard-working, turned his assignments in on time, and worked illegally for a cleaning crew doing the early morning shifts to support his mother back home in Finland.
"Oh, and Senator Calvin's a pretty important guy – he practically controls the Senate House Appropriations Committee. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything to the press; there's gonna be enough stories in the press without all the gory details, okay?"
As he left the office, leaving the shell-shocked student behind him, the Fed wondered if the boy would ever know how lucky he was that the military looked after its own.
Even later, an urgent call roused an old general out of his bed.
"Sam Lane here, what can I do for you Jim?"
"Sam, you've got to help me, you've got to see what they did to my girl! They cut her up…"
"Jim," Sam interrupted, "what are you talking about?"
"Sam, they killed my sweet little girl. They found her early this morning, dead, in a train at the station here in Fort Worth."
"Jim, you talking about Hannah?"
"Yeah Sam, she just yesterday finished her law school exams. She was going to fly in from New York and take the train home. You know we don't live far from the station. But they got to her on the train."
"Jim, I'm really sorry about Hannah, really. She was always such a smart girl, not like my Lois – that girl always needed a ramp up the backside when it came to schoolwork. I hope you can give Zoe my condolences…"
"Sam, shut up! When did you become such a pansy? You and I both know condolences don't mean a thing. It's like telling a mama whose boy died in agony, that he was killed by a shot to the head, it's a lie. What I want is the men who killed my little girl!"
Right, so Jim was over the grieving and onto the revenge part of the agenda. Sam could live with that, as shocked as he was by the news that the little blond girl with glasses he had in his mind's eye was apparently dead, murdered.
Putting the shock aside, Sam focussed on the conversation, action was more his thing anyway. And if he could help his old friend from WestPoint get justice for Hannah, well that put him and the United States military intelligence units that he commanded on the side of good.
"Jim, I'm listening, what do you want me to do?"
***#
Waking up in Oliver's arms was meant to be bliss for the still very new Mrs Queen. She still couldn't believe that she'd beaten Lois to the punch! But presently, the banging on the front door of the penthouse, followed by Lois yelling, was making paradise a hell.
"Chloe, come on open up – I knew that Ollie is a lazy sleeper – but it's freezing out here!"
Oliver pulled her tighter into his arms.
"Maybe if we ignore her, she'll go away…"
Regretfully, pulling herself away from his warm body, Chloe climbed out of the four-poster bed and pulled on her dressing gown.
"Right; this is Lois we're talking about. She'll just build an igloo in the lift, before she leaves without getting what she wants."
Chuckling, Chloe added somewhat rashly "Don't worry, I'll see what she wants and then I'll come straight back to bed…"
Pulling open the entrance to the penthouse, Chloe realised that not only Lois had turned up for a spontaneous visit to the Queens, so had Clark. Of course, her ride. How else had Lois turned up looking so fresh and awake before 7.30 in the morning, here in Star City?
Chloe gave them a smile.
"Hey guys, nice to see you and all, but what are you and Clark doing here, Lois? This is Star City, aren't you both meant to be going to work today at the Daily Planet? I seem to remember that you're both covering the weekend shift this week."
Lois looked both sad and tense, and somehow terribly guilty. With a start Chloe realised Lois only ever looked like that when something bad had happened.
"Lois, what's wrong? What's happened?"
Pulling Chloe into her arms for a hug, Lois started crying as she gave the bad news.
"Chloe, Hannah's dead. She was murdered yesterday on a train back home from the airport. The General says she only just finished law school in New York, she was going to take the Bar in the fall… I can't believe this has happened. The Senator rang Dad for help last night to catch her killer, and I thought maybe Watchtower…"
"…would be able to help. Of course Lois, you don't need to ask. I'll get everyone on it, don't worry. I'm really sorry about Hannah – I know you guys were best friends when you were younger."
Lois looked at Chloe with such relief and gratitude, that Chloe was silenced. What had she ever done to deserve that? Lois was family; she really didn't have to ask.
"You know that we still stayed in touch, even after the General was transferred out of Fort Worth? She was such a nice girl." Lois looked as if she was about to start crying again, as Clark encircled her in a hug.
"The complete opposite of you – I remember: hard-working, clever, a little shy, but just as crazy as you about computer games…!" Chloe tried to focus Lois on the good things.
A little later, Chloe was ushering the couple out of the penthouse – "Seriously, you guys should be getting back to work – or have you forgotten?"
Gone in a flash, Chloe was left saying to the empty kitchen, "I'll get started on things here…"
Oliver sauntered in, "What things? You promised you'd get rid of Lois and come back to bed. You haven't… Do I need to carry you back cave-man style?"
***x
Deep in the Amazon jungle, in the river city of San Jorio, a young bald bitter man is planning his campaign to recover his life.
There are many things that he does not remember from his past, but he does know what he wants from his future. He desires to recreate the world in his image. For that he needs power, and immense wealth.
It is wealth-creation that he is working on at this moment, as a young native enters the local office of Lx FIRESAFE with a telegraph.
It has only three words: 'It is done.'
On reading it, Lex smiles for the first time in six months. Calling his team into his office, he proclaims: "We can move onto stage 2 of the plan. Who wants to be in the next assassination squad? The next target is…"