JSA: Atrocity
By Bruce Wayne
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.
Chapter 4
"They aren't moving out of the street yet," Coughlin, a ferret-face man, reported to O'Malley. The man turned back to the floor-level window that was located at the exact corner of the triangular-shaped floor area. O'Malley was smiling.
"Didn't think they would now. That Sir Edward Hall -- a tough bastard. Got Tompkins with him, too. The BBC down there watching it all. Didn't think they'd be doin' it without a little proddin' now, hmm?"
O'Malley ran both hands across his face, pushing back to lock of brown hair that hung over his right eye. "Ah, better now it is." He smiled, walking past the hostages. Some of the women were crying. One old woman had begged him not to make her kneel because her legs were stiff with arthritis. He made her kneel, anyway.
Only one person didn't kneel -- the little girl in the wheelchair. She sat with her hands folded in the lap of her dress, looking up at him now.
He looked away from her, walking the line of hostages again, stopping in front of the homosexual. O'Malley had made him strip and kneel. He was naked except for the brassiere he'd been trying to buy. "How's it goin, faggy?"
The pale, thin-faced young man licked his lips. "I was going to a costume party. That's -- that's --"
"Ah, and sure'n we know what kind of party it was, too, don't we now," O'Malley jeered, laughing.
He walked on, stopping beside the little girl in the wheelchair again. "Darlin', you're so pretty. 'Tis a shame for you to spend your whole little life in that there chair, it is. But I might fix that now." The little girl gazed up at him, her smile uncertain.
He looked at his four other men, then at Coughlin, beside the window, then at his wristwatch. Seven of the ten minutes were gone.
"Coughlin, take the butt of your pistol and knock the lock offn' that there winder. Open up the winder real high." He looked to his other four men scattered beside the elevator bank, the stairwell and the fire escape. The one standing guard over the hostages was the one he selected. "Mick, be a good lad and help Coughlin. He's a mite skinny to work such a big winder now." O'Malley reached forward, placing his hands on the arms of the little girl's wheelchair. "Yes, darlin', tis a pity for you to live only half a life. Better no life at all."
The woman beside the wheelchair, to O'Malley's right, started to scream. O'Malley's right hand curled around the pistol grip of his submachine gun that hung from under his tweed sport coat as he leaned forward. He shoved the muzzle against the woman's forehead. He spoke to the woman. "Your burdens -- they'll be lifted now, madam." The woman screamed again, reaching out for him with her hands, her nails bared. He smashed the pistol grip against her forehead, knocking her back.
The little girl screamed, "Mommie!"
He shoved the submachine gun against the tip of the little girl's nose. "Shh, darlin', hush now." He stood erect, watching the faces of the hostages. He liked the fear he saw there. He walked behind the wheelchair. His free hand grasped the left handle. He started to wheel the girl forward. As he passed the nearly naked young man, O'Malley heard someone move. He whirled as the homosexual attacked him, trying to wrestle the gun from him.
O'Malley kicked the man in the crotch. The man uttered a scream and slumped back. O'Malley fired a short burst into the man's face. His body thrashed, then lay still.
"Ya did have balls after all, boyo!" The IRA leader laughed, then pushed the wheelchair toward the open window, past the rest of the hostages, past the fifteen sticks of dynamite resting on a glass countertop.
"Gotta show those nasty policemen outside," he told the little girl, "that we mean business, darlin'. Don't we now?" The little girl was crying. O'Malley liked the way the air smelled fresher the closer he pushed her toward the open window.
***
Eight of the ten minutes given by the hostage-takers had elapsed. Wildcat passed the stenciled numeral indicating the seventh floor. Ahead he could see the cracks of light for the access door to the eighth floor. He hoped that no one outside the service shaft could hear the sounds of his movement. Behind him, he knew that three policemen would be coming very soon.
Then Wildcat heard Sir Edward Hall on the loudspeaker system, urging the criminals to surrender. From his position in the shaft, the echoing words were hard to follow, but Wildcat realized that Sir Edward was only trying to cover any telltale sounds that the would-be rescuers would make in reaching the eighth floor.
Wildcat stopped climbing the ladder. His hands were sweating inside the dark blue skintight suit that covered his entire body except for the lower portion of his face.
He looked down. Morgan and the two men were behind him. Wildcat hoped that they would not shoot him thinking he was one of the hostage-takers.
Wildcat shuffled forward with his left hand as he clung to the rungs of the ladder with his right. The noise of Sir Edward's speech over the PA system stopped abruptly.
With both hands grasping an overhead rung, Wildcat swung back, then thrust himself forward. His feet came to rest noiselessly against the access doorframe.
Wildcat nodded to Harold Morgan, who was quite surprised to see a man in a dark costume inside the shaft. Wildcat merely saluted slowly with two fingers to the Flying Squad commander, indicating he was a friendly.
Morgan, knowing he had no time to question this dilemma he was faced with, decided to go along with the costumed character, praying he knew what he was doing. There was no time for conversation.
Wildcat twisted the handle of the access door, swinging the door slightly open.
In the semidarkness of the shaft, there was a pale wash of yellow light now from the opening in the access doorway. Morgan could see Wildcat raise one finger. Morgan understood -- one suspect visible from the door.
Crouching, Wildcat pushed gently on the door. He went through the doorway. Wildcat heard a faint rustle as Morgan started to follow him. He squinted against the sudden brightness of the floor's lights.
The man Wildcat had indicated was now beside the drinking fountain near the elevator bank, his head turned away from the access shaft.
Morgan started to reach for the silenced handgun that he wore in a shoulder holster.
Wildcat stayed Morgan's hand, shaking his head.
The costumed hero held up his hand, indicating to Morgan to wait. Wildcat started forward in a long-strided crouch. He had covered half the distance to the man beside the drinking fountain when he heard a woman scream. Wildcat froze.
Then an Irish-accented male voice said, "The darlin' girl won't feel much of a thing. Her legs are paralyzed, anyway, now aren't they?"
Wildcat saw the guard tense.
"Damn," Wildcat rasped under his breath, taking off in a silent run toward the guard. The man seemed to sense something. He glanced over his right shoulder, then turned. Wildcat's right hand flashed forward. His gloved left hand clamped over the guard's mouth and nose while the right punched into the man's right kidney. Wildcat then wrapped his heavily-muscled arm around the man's neck, cutting off the bloodflow to the brain. Within seconds, the man slumped in Wildcat's arms. Wildcat gently lowered the unconscious suspect to the floor. Morgan took the man's gun and secured it.
Morgan now knew that even though the man was wearing an odd costume that seemed to resemble a dark cat of some sort, he was working with a professional.
Wildcat flattened himself in a corner against the wall.
The Irish voice began again -- Wildcat was certain it was O'Malley. "And what's the matter with you, Terrence? No stomach to watch a pretty little girl go for a flight in the air?"
Wildcat wondered if the unconscious guard was Terrence.
The American vigilante heard the sound of a whimper, then the woman screamed again, "Don't push my baby out the window!"
"For the good of the cause, madam. For the good of the cause, it is!"
Wildcat got ready to move. The masked hero looked at Morgan and nodded once.
"Now!" Wildcat shouted as he hurled himself around the corner, dashing past the elevator bank. The scene that appeared before him seemed surreal.
A man with brown hair was standing beside an open window. The widowsill was at floor level. A young girl sat in a wheelchair covering her eyes with her hands. The man was about to push the wheelchair out the window.
Wildcat shouted, "O'Malley, no!"
A red-haired man was turning toward him, raising his submachine gun to fire. Wildcat executed a flying drop-kick into the man's body, hurling the criminal back against an eight-foot-high glass display cabinet. The body smashed into the glass, shattering it. Headless mannequin torsos wearing bras and girdles tumbled around the man.
Wildcat got up quickly and blocked the blow from a ferret-faced man, who was standing beside O'Malley and the little girl. The American hero then threw a left hook into the man's face, sending him sprawling to the floor.
O'Malley thrust the wheelchair forward out the window. Wildcat saw the chair and its occupant hang there for an instant. They they disappeared. The girl's shriek was lost in the pandemonium. The gang leader began to turn, bringing up a submachine gun.
To his right, Wildcat saw the ferret-faced man incredibly get up from a blow from a former heavyweight boxing champion and lurch toward an electrical detonator near a taped pile of dynamite sticks.
Harold Morgan jabbed the muzzle of his gun against the man's body. Blood and flesh exploded in a crimson mist as he pulled the trigger. The man's body fell toward him. There was no choice in the matter, the man had to be killed.
Wildcat dove out of the way as O'Malley's subgun began to chatter. With his right hand, he drew out one of the stainless-steel shuriken throwing spikes from the back of his glove. He drew back his right arm, then flicked the wrist forward, hurling the shuriken toward O'Malley.
O'Malley's body spun as his left hand reached up, tugging at the spike embedded in his chest. His subgun sprayed harmlessly into the floor. Wildcat's right hand found the side of O'Malley's head. It was followed by a left hook across the face. O'Malley's body twitched each time. Wildcat followed up with two more blows.
O'Malley weaved, refusing to go down. The subgun still rose. Wildcat moved toward O'Malley, then planted his right foot as he halfed wheeled. His left leg snapped up and out, impacting on O'Malley's throat.
"Damn you, boyo!" O'Malley croaked. His body tumbled backward and his head and shoulders grazed the wooden window frame. O'Malley's body then flew through the window as the subgun fired into the ceiling.
Chunks of plaster rained down on Wildcat. The gunfire around him stopped.
Wildcat looked behind him once. Morgan stood there, a gun in his hand. The other two Flying Squad men were there, too. No was wounded. Some of the women and children were crying.
The IRA men and the homosexual lay dead on the floor.
Then Wildcat heard it -- a small voice coming from outside the window. "Help me, please ..."
Wildcat raced to the window and leaned out over the floor-level sill.
There were knots of men on the street standing around what looked like a twisted mass of wheels and tubing. Others stood around something that might have been a body.
Firemen were running out with a net.
Wildcat looked slightly to his right.
Halfway down the floor below dangled the little girl, part of her dress caught on the point of a flagpole. Her hands were grasping a ripping Union Jack.
"Good God," Wildcat rasped. He looked behind him. Trying hard to put an English accent in his voice, Wildcat said to Morgan, "Quick, man, I need some rope or belts. Hurry!"
The policemen quickly looked around and decided they weren't likely to find rope in the woman's foundations department of the store. They began taking their belts off.
Wildcat took the belts and hooked them through the buckles to secure two of them into a loop and attached the third one to them.
Giving the free end to Morgan, the costumed man said, "Hold this. Don't let go, or you'll lose us both." Wildcat slipped the sling over his head and shoulders, settling it under his armpits.
Morgan wrapped the tongue of the belt around his fist. "This won't hold you, sir!"
"Damn well better," Wildcat snapped, stepping out onto the ledge.
"Hurry up, please!" whimpered the little girl.
Wildcat looked down at her and wished he had a utility belt like Batman. This type of rescue would be a piece of cake for him, Wildcat thought.
The hero dressed in a dark, cowled cat suit said, "Hold on, dear. You'll be fine. Just hold that flag and don't move!"
Wildcat looked back to see Morgan out on the ledge behind him. Morgan's right hand was locked into a clamp for the window washer.
"Now if you don't like costumed heroes in your city," Wildcat began, placing his knees at the edge of the twelve-inch wide ledge, "letting go of that belt isn't the way to tell me about it." Wildcat eased his hands to the ledge, letting down one knee, then the other. His right foot rested on the base of the flagpole when he extended the toe of his boot.
Wildcat lowered himself slowly. All that held him now were Morgan and the belts. The hero straddled the flagpole. He could feel the pole pressing into his testicles. He glanced up to Morgan. "Test this for me. Let out some slack on your end of the harness -- just a little." He felt the easing tension where the sling bound against his armpits, then felt the polce sag slightly, but it held. "Now I'm going out to get her. Hang in there, officer," Wildcat shouted over the police sirens below.
The costumed man stretched forward, and his gloved hands eased across the length of the flagpole. At his longest reach the little girl was still more than two feet away. He leaned his weight out to full extension along the pole as his knees gripped it tightly. The pole sagged more under him.
Moving is knees millimeters at a time, he edged forward. The little girl was crying for her mother.
He inched forward slowly again, feeling the pole bending some more under their combined weight.
Once more he reached out. Then he had her. He gripped her left hand.
"Gotcha, sweetheart!" he shouted at her.
He tried pulling her up, but the dress was still caught in the point of the flagpole. The pole that had saved her life now endangered it. The flagpole swayed and creaked as the wind gusted.
"Hell," Wildcat rasped.
The little girl's eyes widened as she looked at the oddly dressed man. She said, crying, "Mommie told me that's a bad word."
"Mommie's right." He nodded, trying to distract the girl from her predicament.
"Why are you wearing that funny suit," she asked.
He smiled. "What funny suit? Haven't you ever seen a man in a cat costume before? I bet you like cats."
Breathless, Wildcat thought desperately of a way to unsnag her dress. Then he had it. He reached his free hand down, pulling another shuriken spike from the back of the left glove. The shuriken was identical to the one he'd thrown into O'Malley's chest.
He stabbed the point of the spike into the fabric of the dress, punching the tiny blade through half its length, ripping the material. He tugged harder. The material around the collar was stronger -- but it ripped, too. Wildcat freed the girl, feeling her full weight -- fifty or sixty pounds, he judged -- in his right hand.
He tossed the shuriken back toward the building, hoping it didn't land on anyone below.
Wildcat looked at the little girl. His right hand clung to what was left of her dress, and his fingers were knotted into her hair. "This'll hurt, sweetheart, but I have to do it."
The little girl screamed as he pulled her up.
Wildcat shifted his body weight so he wouldn't slip off the pole. "Now," he gasped, swallowing hard, "get on my back. Knot your fingers into my suit in front and hug my neck. Can you do that?"
She was already doing it. Wildcat could feel her weight on him. He also felt her hands around his neck, tugging at the front of his costume. He started to edge his body back along the flagpole's length. He kept moving. The flagpole creaked under their weight now.
"Keep coming!" It was Morgan's voice.
Wildcat nodded, licking his dry lips, edging back farther. His hands were damp in the gloves.
Then his right foot felt something hard. He twisted slightly, almost losing his balance. His fingers locked tighter onto the flagpole. His right foot was against the side of the building.
He kept moving backward, and his left foot made contact now.
"Officer, holiday's over. Start pulling when I say go!"
"Yes, sir!"
His hands pushed against the flagpole. His feet were planted against the building.
"Now all you got," and he pushed his arms out to maximum extension. The belts hurt as the tension increased across his chest. He reached his arms behind him when they could no longer do him any good, getting the girl tighter against him as he leaned back.
"Grab the little girl," he gasped, standing now, extending his right hand up to the ledge. He looked behind him and saw Morgan taking her up. The belt stayed taut.
He reached across his body with his left hand to touch the ledge.
"Got her, sir, inside and safe."
Wildcat said nothing, just let Morgan haul him up. He pushed with his feet, sprawling half across the ledge. Morgan's hands were on him, helping to untie the belts. Then Wildcat half crawled through the smashed window into the foundations department.
He sat back on a small chair one of the hostages moved out for him. "Thanks, madam," he said as he watched the little girl being cuddled in her arms.
Another older woman came up to the costumed man and asked simply, "Who are you?"
"They call me Wildcat," he replied.
The woman smiled and told him, "I call you a hero."
***
Rex Tyler (Hourman) shows up in chapter 5.
***
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