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 18
Batman looked out from the second floor of the JSA's temporary command post in Gateway City down onto Forty-seventh Street.
Dr Mid-Nite, Hourman, and Mr Terrific came through the door into the room. "Beautiful view, huh?" Mr Terrific asked.
Batman glanced back down at Forty-seventh Street in the non-descript neighborhood. "Oh, yeah, really."
Dr Mid-Nite sat in one of the leather armchairs beside the desk. Mr Terrific went around the desk and, of course, sank into the leather swivel chair.
"I came up with something interesting," Mid-Nite announced to the Caped Crusader.
Batman looked at him, watching the grin on his fellow crimefighter's face.
Dr Mid-Nite informed the others, "First of all, back channel information reveals that General Franklin is presumed dead. Fingerprints found on the scene of the helicopter thefts were distinct enough to indicate they were not Franklin's, not a single half of a thumbprint. Franklin's house showed signs of illegal entry. Franklin's wife is missing, but their bank accounts -- none of that has been touched. This morning Hourman gave me a description of Franklin's pilot. The man was slightly built, blond haired, smiled a good deal and seemed, well --"
"I said he looked like a homosexual, the expression in his eyes, the way he moved. He just seemed -- well, I don't," Hourman explained.
"Going on the assumption that you're right, Rex," Dr Mid-Nite continued, "I checked for a blond-haired, slightly built homosexual helicopter pilot with a Korean war record. I came up with just one man -- a crack helicopter pilot. A known criminal since those days. In and out of jail. Wanted currently for ice-picking somebody -- oddly enough -- in Gateway City. Also, for his involvement, according to the Spectre's everyday identity, in a brawl just recently here, too, with a tall effeminate-looking but muscular man who fought like a mountain lion."
"False-Face," whispered Batman.
"My thought, exactly, Caped Crusader," Dr Mid-Nite said. "Man's name is Billy Mason. Also known as Flyboy. He worked with False-Face before, we think."
"If False-Face is planting a bomb laced with VX nerve gas ..." Mr Terrific remarked. "Hell, I'm an explosives expert. You can blow up anything with anything, but the trick of the thing is not to be there when the device goes up."
"So False-Face would have the same problem, only on a bigger scale," Batman murmured.
"So he'd need a helicopter," Hourman added.
"He'd need the best and most reliable helicopter pilot he could find. Someone totally ruthless and totally loyal to him," Dr Mid-Nite added.
"That homosexual," Mr Terrific said.
"Billy Mason," Dr Mid-Nite added. "Born William Aloysius Mason in the Midwest, in Davenport, Iowa." The crimefighter was reading from a file that he had brought in. "For a time he worked as a helicopter pilot after the war -- here in Gateway City. The ownership of the helicopter service has changed twice since then, but --"
"Holy Hijack!" Mr Terrific rasped. "Let's go!"
Batman checked his utility belt as he went through the door behind Mr Terrific, Dr Mid-Nite and Hourman.
***
The gray van stopped at the corner, turning right onto Ninety-fifth Street and heading east. William Belcher was driving. False-Face, wearing a cloth coat over his Gateway City police uniform shirt and his hat on his lap, sat beside him. In the back of the van were Fred and four other men. False-Face looked over the short sloping hood along the street. "We are in Kingsville still?" he asked.
"Yes, Mr False-Face," Belcher answered.
"Have all key personnel with the exception of yourselves been removed a safe distance from Gateway City?"
"Yes, Mr False-Face," Belcher answered.
"You are brave men. Your names will be revered by future generations," False-Face told them. He knew it was what they wanted to hear.
No one said anything.
False-Face checked his map; there were no notations written on it. He memorized notations, rather than leaving them as evidence. "You plan to turn left on Western Avenue to Seventy-ninth Street, then proceed east again toward the university?"
Yes, Mr False-Face," Belcher said. False-Face was watching him.
"Good, but when we near Western Avenue, please inform me."
Belcher looked at him. "Yes, sir."
Several minutes passed without anyone saying anything. Then Belcher broke the silence. "Sir, this is California Street. Western is four long blocks ahead."
"Very good," False-Face said, glancing up from his map. "There is a different plan. I saved its detail until the last minute. You will turn right instead and proceed to the to the end of the line station for what I believe is called the River Street subway."
"The subway?" Fred asked from behind him.
"Yes," False-Face droned in his own voice. "The bomb will not be detonated at the university as I indicated. The last-minute change is for security purposes only. In the event of a leak --"
"Surely none of us --" Belcher almost pleaded.
"Of course not," False-Face reassured him. "But there are others who might possibly have unwittingly divulged some tidbit of information that even now the FBI or some other organization might be acting upon. We shall plant the bomb with the nerve gas on the subway train, and it shall be left aboard the train at the far Western station just past the suburb of Pleasantview. I believe the place is Oregon Avenue?"
"Yes, sir," Belcher said.
"The bomb will be detonated there in the switching yard. The six of you will accompany it to make certain it remains secure. Once you leave the bomb, I would have you open the bomb case and flick the toggle switch marked 'A.'" He glanced back toward the trunk-sized suitcase between the five men who sat in the rear of the van.
"After working this toggle switch," False-Face proceeded, "you will have exactly one half hour to reach a forest preserve near Fifth Avenue and South Avenue, not far from the switching yard. Flyboy will be waiting for you with a helicopter."
The van made the right-hand turn onto Western Avenue. False-Face stripped off his coat and put on his police officer's hat. "I wish you good luck," he said in his own voice, then added in the character of the Gateway City policeman, "I'm countin' on you guys a hell of a lot."
Belcher only nodded.
***
The sign read: Gateway City Whirlybirds -- Executive Helicopter Service -- Flight Instruction Available.
Batman stepped out of the Batmobile, followed by Dr Mid-Nite. Hourman rode in Mr Terrific's Cadillac and the two of them had made it to the office first. Dr Mid-Nite and Batman walked toward the doorway of the chopper-service office.
The Caped Crusader saw Hourman and Mr Terrific coming outside with a third man between them.
"This gentleman says he rented out his last charter about fifteen minutes ago," Mr Terrific said.
Batman looked at Terrific, then past him at a blue-and-white Bell helicopter. "What the hell's that, a mirage?" Batman shouted.
"No, but I don't have another pilot, mister" the man between Mr Terrific and Hourman shouted.
Batman walked up to him. "Who did you rent it to?"
"None of your --"
Hourman grabbed the man's bicep and squeezed. "I don't mean to be unfriendly, sir, but the guy you rented it to -- was he blond, kind of slight? Maybe he looked like he was a homosexual?"
The man listened to the question with his mouth wide open in a silent scream. He finally managed to catch his breath and voice from the shock of the pain in his arm. "Yeah, that was him. He said he had to pick up a half-dozen guys and bring 'em back here. That's his car over there." The man's eyes flickered to Batman's left.
Batman glanced that way. A green Ford was parked by a small, abandoned-looking hanger.
The Sandmobile screeched to a stop near the four crimefighters and civilian.
Mr Terrific was already calling out to the vehicle's occupants, "Sandman, Wildcat, you two go can-opener that Ford."
"Watch out for fingerprints -- the ones already on the car," Batman called after them. Then he looked back at the proprietor of the helicopter service. The eyes behind the lenses in the cowl stared a hole into the man who was being reluctantly cooperative at best.
The man breathed audibly. "Who are you guys?"
"Which direction did the pilot say he was going?" Batman asked, ignoring the man's question. "Eastern suburbs, maybe?"
"Uh-huh, that's what the blond guy said."
"I want to use the helicopter you have there. She fueled and checked out?"
The man nodded. "But it won't do you any good. My other pilot's out with the third helicopter."
"Two of us here can fly a helicopter," Batman told him -- referring without saying so to Mr Terrific and himself.
"Hey, ain't no way nobody's flyin' one of --"
Hourman squeezed the man's bicep again. "Now, sir, I'm sure you would prefer that your arm remained attached to your shoulder, wouldn't you? We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either option is just fine with us. The choice is up to you."
"I'll get the keys," the man stammered.
"Hey, Terrific!"
Batman looked left. It was Wildcat, standing beside the green Ford. The trunk lid was open.
"Hourman," the Caped Crusader snapped. "Get our friend to start up the motors if he can. Hurry." Batman started after Mr Terrific, running toward the rented car beside the old hanger.
"Batman!" Mr Terrific exclaimed as the masked crimefighter from Gotham City stopped beside the trunk next to Terrific. Through a rip in a couple of green canvas tarps he could see part of a woman's face and some blond hair. The face was a little chubby. The eyes were wide open, glassy. The shaft of an ice pick was poking out of her jugular vein.
"Flyboy," Batman whispered.
"That Son of a --" Mr Terrific let it hang.
***
"Hey, pilot," Billy "Flyboy" Mason called out, tapping the thin, dark-haired man on the shoulder.
"Yeah?" the pilot shouted back over the twin-blade rotor noise.
"We're going south now," Flyboy shouted.
"What? Thought we were headed out to the eastern suburbs," the pilot shouted back.
Billy looked down at the streets below them. "No, everybody, at least anybody who's interested, should think that by now. No use not telling you, though," Flyboy said. "I'm taking the helicopter to the far south side of town. Picking up only one man, not six. Those six other men -- they're carrying a bomb laced with VX nerve gas aboard one of your subway trains. They think it won't go off for a half hour after they set the timer, but it's just a fake timer," he shouted. "The real timer --" he glanced at his watch "-- was set two minutes ago. The bomb will detonate just as the train passes through downtown Gateway City -- the early rush hour. Boom, within minutes the nerve gas will spread from the ventilation ducts into the air -- all gone. Thousands of people dead."
The pilot started to reach for him, but Flyboy jabbed a gun against the pilot's rib cage. He pumped the trigger three times, then reached out and grabbed the controls. He released the pilot's seat belt, then reached across and flicked open the door-handle latch, letting the door swing out against the slipstream around them. He gave the dead pilot a shove. If he wasn't dead, Billy reasonsed, he would be by the time he landed in the vacant lot below them.
The body fell away from the hovering chopper.
Flyboy watched, fascinated, as the body tumbled downward. It was so graceful. He had been a nice-looking man. "Boom, all gone." Billy sighed wistfully.
***
Hourman, Dr Mid-Nite, Wildcat and Sandman were in the back of the chopper, while Mr Terrific sat up front beside Batman.
Mr Terrific was tuning the radio set under the helicopter instrument panel, trying to pick up police frequencies. Gateway City police, he explained, broadcast on one frequency and received on another.
The radio crackled, then a voice came on over the headphone that looked more like an old-time telephone operator headset. What they heard was a district-headquarters bulletin. "All units in the vicinity of Seventy-ninth and Kostner ... citizen report of a body-shaped object being thrown from a helicopter, landing in vacant lot. This is a --"
Mr Terrific cut off the radio. "Flyboy?" he shouted to Batman.
"Flyboy!" The Caped Crusader shouted back.
Batman banked the Bell helicopter hard starboard, pouring on speed.
In the distance, through the industrial pollution and smoke, he saw something. He poured on more speed, glancing through the clear panels beneath his feet, seeing police cars converging on a vacant lot below him. A dark twisted shape lay in the center of the lot. The shape was obscured by dust as the police cars closed in. The object ahead of him in the sky grew clearer now -- a helicopter. He pushed the speedometer over ninety, going after it.
"All right, you filthy criminal," Batman growled. He only wished Billy "Flyboy" Mason could hear him.
TO BE CONTINUED ....
***
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