Secret II

June 16th : Tower Bridge

Footsteps echoed throughout the room, full of old, yet preserved technology side-by-side with the modern, more effective versions. The room was cold, and when the men stopped, silent.

"No signs of someone tampering."

"Actually, this door looks like it's been forced open."

"So they went in there, have they left yet?"

A metallic clang followed by some muffled shouting.

"I'll go with no." Bruce flattened himself against the wall next to the ajar door, carefully moving round to glance into the next room, where the old tanks had been placed. He could see two men one with shoulder length, blonde hair and a full beard down to his collarbone, the other with shorter, spiked brown hair. The latter was kneeling next to a black plastic briefcase, which was open with it's top to Bruce. This meant he couldn't see what the man was fiddling with inside.

"Boss'll be happy when this goes." drifted through from the brown-haired man. Bruce quickly glanced at Kal, making sure he knew it was an actual threat. The other man was already quietly contacting the Watchtower.

The blonde man gave a harsh, quieter growl in response to the other goon's statement.

"Whad'aya mean we'll be heard? Noone's been down here for centuries." Came the indignant reply as spikey-haired stood up, closing the case as he did so.

"If you're done, we can go meet the boat, they said they'd be waiting for us on the bank below the bridge." Blondie was clearly getting exasperated

"Knowing those clowns they'll be waiting on the North side, even though we told 'em we'd be in the oldest engine room, which everyone knows is on the South side." spikey-haired clearly didn't like his collegues then.

"Let's go and see shall we!" snapped Blondie, having finally lost his temper with his laid-back partner. They both headed over to the stairs on the other side of the room, leading down to the river bank. As soon as they were out of range, Bruce and Kal headed straight for the case.

"Clowns are on the river, heading here from both directions and looking for a small craft with a minimum of three people in it." J'onn's voice drifted through their wires.

"Good. I'll get this disarmed and back to the Watchtower." Bruce's curt reply was due to him focussing most of his attention on the bomb in front of him.

"It's got a remote detonator. I've disarmed the other fail-safes but there's no way of telling weather the remote shows bomb status. If it does and I disarm it, we'll spook whoever had it put it here."

"To be honest, the direct threat of bomb is a bigger problem than letting criminals know that there's someone after them." Kal called from the other side of the room where he had found something the goons seemed to have left behind.

"I can see why you're part of the service." Bruce's familiar deadpan cam floating back.

"Once you're finished being superior, I've found a mobile phone left here by Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It looks like it's a personal one, they must of dropped it during entering." Kal walked back towards Bruce, who had just finished removing the remote detonator from the now de-active bomb. Just to be sure.

"Let's get this back, and see what that phone has on it." Bruce lifted the case and led the way out.

"The phone is owned by a Martin Harris one of the bridge goons, the other two are Russell Morris and Harold Smith. But it's the recent calls on the phone that are interesting, all of them come back to Brain Lockes, a senior guard at a new corporation building." J'onn's statement quickly gathered the other members of the team around him.

"LuthorCorp, We make things grow." Diana read from the screen.

"I saw this in the news, it's a large American company that started of in agriculture and then moved into almost all areas of biotechnology, it's big and looking to London to use as a headquarters to expand into Europe." John explained the slogan with his own knowledge.

"So what's a security guard doing phoning bombers?" Shayera took the question they were all thinking and said it out loud.

"We can go through the phone company's records and see, or rather, hear, just what he's doing." J'onn was already reaching for the phone.

"I want to find out more about this company, this guard seems to have a fairly good job and most people wouldn't want to give that up, so there could be a connection that meant he wouldn't have to" Shayera sat at her computer and started typing.

"Yeah, 'our operations are expanding into Europe with a bang!' brilliant business slogan." Wally's laughter drifted across from his workstation.

"Don't you have something to do Hotshot?"

"John, I am doing something."

"Alright then, something useful! You're sat at your desk doing nothing as usual!"

"John, being in this job, you really should have figured this out by now, in fact all of you should of, but you haven't so let me simplify and explain it. A train station is where a train stops, a bus station is where a bus stops, on my desk I have a work station..."

"Where common sense stops" Shayera interrupted with a sigh.

"While you're all doing the computer work, I'm going to see if this guard will tell us anything, and arrest him even if he does."

"I assume that doesn't necessarily mean asking nicely." Kal smirked as he got up and grabbed his jacket for the second time that day.

"Who said you were coming?" Bruce's reply held a strong undertone of 'because I certainly didn't'

"Common sense, there are times when you have about as much as Wally." This statement earning the long-suffering ex-journalist a patented 'Batglare' as Wally had named them.

"And when was the last time that worked anyway." He continued as he strode over to the lift. His only reply was a 'hmmpphh'.

Climbing out of the jet black Range Rover, Bruce looked up at the massive skyscraper LuthorCorp had built to function as the European HQ, It was 75 storeys high and consisted of several main thick, green painted steel beams forming a curved 'L' shape, following the base parallel to the ground before rising straight up into the air. The gaps between these were filled by teal-coloured glass and you could just make out the silhouettes of workers on the lower levels.

"Here it is, the newest entry for least subtle HQ design." Bruce muttered as he strode towards the entrance, not waiting for Kal to catch up.

"There was something I needed to talk to you about, you've taken overtime to a new level recently, I know it's close to that date, but that is not the nest way of coping with it." Kal's tone was no nonsense as he caught up with his friend, clearly suggesting he wasn't happy with the issue.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

A sigh. "I have no idea why I bother."

They entered the clean, contemporary reception, and headed straight for the main desk. A lightly-built, but very handsome blond man was sat there on the phone, which he replaced as they approached.

"Welcome to LuthorCorp's European HQ, how may I help you today."

"We're looking for Brain Harris, we need to speak with him." Bruce held up his ID.

"He's supposed to be on the top floor, which is Mr. Luthor's office..." he trailed off as they strode straight past and into the lift.

"Straight to the boss, this could be interesting" was Kal's comment on the situation as he looked at his friend.

"What." The monosyllabic reply accompanied by a glare.

"I'm not letting what I said earlier go." Luckily for Bruce the lift stopped and they were facing a large, open office with panoramic windows on three sides and clear views over the beautiful city. In the centre of the room was a large desk at which a man sat talking to a security guard. Neither reacted to the initial arrival of the lift. There were two more guards posted by the lift itself but a quick flash of I.D.'s got them out of the way. Bruce confidently strode towards the desk, the movement earning a reaction from the two men there.

"Well, hello, you must be the M.I.5 agents the receptionist gave me a call about."

"We're looking for Brian Lockes." Bruce cut straight to the point.

"Well he would be the man standing next to me, why exactly are you looking for him?" Luthor's brow furrowed.

"I'm sorry but we cannot disclose any information about ongoing investigations." Kal cut off any further questions from Luthor as he followed Bruce, who was half-dragging, half-leading Brian away from the other occupants of the room.

"We have evidence linking you with a bomb planted and prevented this morning." Bruce pulled himself up to his full height and stared at Brian, his emotionless tone clearing aiding in intimidating the man.