JSA: If Looks Could Kill
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 2
Charles McNider smoothed his shirt under the waistband of his gray flannel slacks as he walked across the room.
The door bell rang.
As he donned his jacket, McNider walked down the three stairs that led from the living room to the small hallway entrance.
McNider stopped at the doorway as the bell rang again. He caught his breath, straightened the midnight-blue ascot and the collar of his pale- blue shirt, the brass-buttoned blazer he left open as he reached for the doorknob.
He opened the door to Johanna Gruber. Though he was supposed to be blind, McNider could see through his special dark glasses that the woman at his door was tall. The figure was pleasant, the face beautiful, he thought. Her hair was rich, full -- and he thought auburn -- though it was a little hard to tell from the tint of his special glasses. As he stepped into the doorway to welcome her, he could smell her perfume. It was the perfume she had worn aboard that flight from Germany some weeks back.
It really wasn't that long ago, but the world had changed. False-Face had stolen one hundred canisters of the deadly VX nerve gas from a U.S. government shipment and would have released the contents of one of the canisters in Gateway City, had it not been for the efforts of the Justice Society of America. But False-Face had gotten away.
McNider suddenly realized the woman was staring at him. "Is there anything wrong, Charles? You did expect me?" The voice was warm, soft and inviting.
"Expect you. My dear, I have anticipated you since that wonderful telephone call." He pretended to search for her left elbow with his right hand to usher her inside. She wore a luxurious gray fur coat, the kind with the pelts sewn laterally rather than vertically, trimmed with black leather. She looked wonderful in it, he thought. As he helped her out the coat he said, "May I, my dear?"
"Yes, thank you, Charles," came the soft reply.
As she turned to face him, she smiled.
McNider stepped back from her, but only a half step. She wore a black dress, the hem falling just slightly below her knees. A single strand of rich white pearls caressed a long alabaster neck. Pearl earrings to match graced her ears. The black leather handbag she clutched perfectly matched her shoes, which were high heeled. She was taller than he, he realized as he turned back to face her after he had hung her coat in the entrance closet.
"You look lovely," he told her, almost compelled to say that.
"Thank you, Charles. You flatter me. But ... but how can you tell?" She smiled again.
Realizing that he was supposed to appear blind, McNider replied, "I can tell by the sound of your voice."
Even the faintness of her German accent had something appealing about it, something very European that was hard to define. "Are we alone?" she asked, her left hand gently primping her hair.
"Of course we are, my dear. May I offer you a drink?"
"All right," she said, and still clutching her leather bag she walked with him up the three steps leading to the living room.
It was a spacious and well-designed apartment. Dr McNider spent much time in London doing research for his crime articles and mystery novels that he wrote. The flat was much better than any small hotel room.
McNider steered her toward the bar at the far side of the room. The apartment was perfect for an intimate dinner.
"I wonder what you might like to drink, Fraulein Gruber," he asked.
"Johanna," she corrected. "Perhaps a glass of white wine, Charles. Whatever you might choose for me."
"White wine it is. A Chablis perhaps, or something more German -- a Hock as they were once called. A Rheinhessen?"
"Rhine wine, I like that." She smiled.
McNider found a bottle of Rhine and began to pour it into a glass.
"You amaze me, Charles! How can you tell when to stop pouring before you spill?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "Many years of practice, my dear."
They had moved to the couch, and McNider sat beside her not knowing what to say. Something about her was totally different from other women he had met.
He tried to compose himself when he started to hear the screeching tone of a telephone that had been left off the hook.
"The phone," he said, "I must have forgotten to replace the receiver after I --"
He heard a sneeze from beside him, a tiny sneeze calculated to draw his attention.
Doctor McNider turned and looked at Johanna. She was smiling, picking up her handbag from the coffee table. Opening her handbag, she started to pick through it with her long fingers. "One of the difficulties of my profession," she said. "I move from place to place so frequently, I never seem to adjust to the climate."
"Perhaps I should turn up the heat a bit or maybe I can write you a prescription if you know of any allergies that you may have," responded McNider. "I'd imagine being an airline hostess does take its toll in the sniffs-and-sneezes department." He smiled, starting to rise.
Charles McNider felt himself freeze in midmotion. The gun in Johanna's right hand was poking him in the ribs.
"Yes, being a flight attendant is difficult, but being a wanted fugitive is even worse -- Charles." The voice was a man's, Germanic, cultured, calculating.
"My God!" McNider exclaimed.
"Go ahead," the voice came back, "guess who I am."
"Johanna," stammered McNider, "False-Face!"
False-Face still looking like the beautiful Johanna, laughed, insanely loud. "Not bad for a blind man! I was afraid you were going to try to get into my pants before you found out."
"Damn you!" McNider rasped. He threw himself at False-Face, clawing for the gun, but False-Face was quicker. As he sprang up from the couch, the pistol hammered against the right side of McNider's head.
McNider rolled to the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table.
He started to his feet, but the muzzle of the pistol was quickly pressing between his eyes and he remained motionless, on his knees. He cursed himself for being fooled so badly.
"Charles," taunted False-Face, "you are going to die, and however rapidly or slowly death comes to you is entirely of your own making. I need to know all that you, and your numerous law enforcement sources know, everything dealing with my theft of the VX nerve gas canisters -- all of it." Then the voice changed to Johanna's again, and McNider was filled with revulsion. "Please, Charles," False-Face cooed.
***
Dr Charles McNider opened his eyes. The needle False-Face had jabbed into his neck made him feel vaguely hung over.
False-Face sat on a barstool. McNider realized he was on the floor and his dark glasses were gone. He was now truly blind. He tried to move, but his hands were tied behind him. His ankles were bound, as well. He tried to speak, but there was something covering his mouth. Adhesive tape, he guessed.
Beside False-Face, on the bar, was the gas-flamed chafing dish the caterer would have used to keep the poulet Marengo hot.
If McNider could see, his eyes would had focused on the tiny object that was in the criminal's hand.
"Having trouble, Charles?" False-Face spoke in Johanna's voice again, and then his own. "If you could see, my friend, what I have in my hands is an ordinary kitchen skewer. Allow me to describe in delicious detail what I will be doing since you are as a blind as a bat!" False-Face's face suddenly scowled. "Bat? I shouldn't remind myself of my primary nemesis from Gotham City. Ah, but I digress, Charles. I'm heating several of these skewers in the flame beneath the chafing dish. The chicken smells wonderful, by the way. My compliments to your caterer. If you have time, you might divulge who your caterer is, too. We have no time for drug therapy, as you physcians may say, to induce your truthfulness, and with some people -- as I'm sure you know, doctor -- certain drugs can indeed induce a heart attack -- and I don't wish you dead yet. I need the information that I am sure that you can provide far too greatly to risk your demise."
False-Face smiled. If McNider could had seen it -- it was Johanna's smile.
McNider felt sick at False-Face's words.
"Before I begin with the red-hot skewers," False-Face continued, "the testicles perhaps, or the inner ear, and soon the eyeballs themselves." In a whimsical motion, False-Face covered his mouth with the palm of his left hand. "Oops, I forgot. You're already blind!" He laughed insanely loud again.
The criminal tormentor continued on, "But before the fun and games, Charles, a word of advice. If the Hindus are right, and we return to this life again, and should you come back as a man instead of an ass, I might suggest that you ask a woman out only after you've first seen her in the nude."
False-Face laughed, but it was Johanna's higher-pitched laugh. False-Face rose from the barstool with what McNider interpreted with his ears as a calculated taunt, smoothing his hands along his thighs. False-Face picked up one of the skewers and moved the few steps to him before dropping to his knees on the carpet. In his hands, False-Face held the red-hot, glowing skewer.
McNider suddenly realized he was naked except for his boxer shorts and over- the-calf gray socks.
He couldn't see the skewer, but in a searing stab of pain, he could feel it on his chest. He wanted to scream, but the tape covering his mouth made him gag.
***
The rotorthrob sound of the helicopter's blades seemed more pronounced to him now as the chopper moved low over the tree line. Ted Grant felt his stomach heave as the helicopter suddenly dipped, skimming the close-cropped grass, settling in beyond Marble Arch in a corner of Hyde Park. Doctor Charles McNider's apartment was less than four blocks away in Shepherd's Park.
As the forward tip of the runner touched, Grant popped open the seat restraint, pushed the cabin door open and ducked as he jumped under the spinning rotors. He glanced back once. Inspector Hall and Tompkins of the Home Office were racing out behind him. Following them came two uniformed officers.
Grant could hear Hall shouting to him, "Out of the park and three blocks straight down -- should be the far side of the street -- but I'll have a car here in under five minutes."
"No time," Grant shouted back. His Wildcat equipment was still with his luggage back at Heathrow.
If False-Face was with Dr Charles McNider, it was for one purpose only -- information about the investigation of the theft of the ninety-nine reamaining canisters of VX nerve gas. And after he got the information, or if by some miracle McNider was able to hold it back -- death!
Grant was now out of the park, skidding on his heels. He ran, looking up the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ted Knight come up fast beside him.
A hundred yards, then across the street -- that was all the distance that remained. Grant recognized the number of the building from Charles McNider's address. He dodged a truck and reached the middle of the street.
He had to stop for an instant as a van bore down on him. He glanced behind him to see Knight skirt a classic MG. Hall, Tompkins and the two bobbies were at the curb, coming into the street.
The van passed, and Grant brushed a Bentley's rear bumper. He threaded his way between a parked vintage Rover and an Austin, and leaped up the curb.
He half sagged against the frosted-glass doorway of the red brick Victorian apartment house. The door was locked.
"The bell," he heard Knight pant.
"We try the bell, False-Face'll know," Grant gasped in reply.
There were four bells indicating four apartments, each occupying its own floor. McNider had the top floor, Grant remembered.
One of the bobbies was up beside him and Grant reached toward the man, grabbing his truncheon. "Gimme that, corporal." Grant rammed the club into the glass near the door handle. A jagged hole about the size of a grapefruit appeared. He quickly pushed his arm through, found the inside handle and released the lock.
Withdrawing his hand, he threw his weight against the door, half stumbling inside.
The floors and parts of the walls were composed of tiny segments of sparkling white and deep black tiles.
A massive frost-glass globe hung from the ceiling and shed a soft glow over the foyer. An elevator encased in ornate brass caging and a winding staircase presented themselves to the left.
Grant raced toward the stairs. "This way, hurry," he shouted, hearing Tompkins barking some sort of order behind him. Ted Knight and the corporal were nearest to Grant as he raced up the staircase three treads at a time.
He reached the first landing, swung around it and continued to climb. The elevator would have been too slow, and the noise might have alerted False- Face causing him to kill if he hadn't already.
At the second landing Knight was outdistancing him, moving at incredible speed up the stairs. He was moving like it was a matter of life and death -- because it was.
Knight was past the landing now running, at such an angle that he appeared to be throwing himself ahead.
Grant was taking two steps at a time. His arms were pulling him along the handrailing. He reached the landing. The bobby was beside him.
At the top, Grant stumbled forward. He saw Knight already standing beside the door. Grant sagged back against the wall opposite the door and held his hand up to signal two policemen to wait.
Grant started for the door, took a long step forward, put his weight on his right foot, and pivoted half right, his left foot snaking up toward the center of the lockplate in a martial arts kick.
As he spun out of the kick, the door burst open and Ted Knight flew past him.
Grant rushed in behind him. A woman, tall and beautiful, held a kitchen skewer. McNider was writhing on the carpet, the scant blond hair on his chest on fire.
Ted Grant felt his jaw set as Knight dived toward the woman. But the woman, who had to be False-Face, stepped aside as Knight hurtled over and landed on McNider and smothering the flames on his chest.
False-Face raised his pistol and Grant threw himself into a forward roll as the gun thundered over his head.
As Grant came out of the roll at the edge of the coffee table, he saw one of the bobbies go down, and heard a cry of pain.
Grant's arm shot up, the edge of his left hand connecting hard against the inside of False-Face's forearm, deflecting the muzzle of the gun. Another shot rang out, and the large mirror above the fireplace exploded into tiny spikes of lethal glass like a fragmentation grenade.
Ted Grant's right fist shot forward, the middle knuckles going for the center of the feminine-looking face. The auburn head snapped back, and Grant felt a stabbing surge of pain in his groin. He threw himself left as he went down, seeing a second kick miss, its high arc restricted by the tight skirt. Grant realized the skirt was all that saved him from having been crippled by the death-merchant's vicious kick.
A look of surprise came over the woman's face as she appeared to recognize Ted Grant. "The heavweight champion of the world?!" she exclaimed.
A pistol coughed from behind him, Sir Edward Hall's weapon. False-Face threw himself to the right, and back, and the shot whispered past. Grant saw the impact as the chafing dish crashed off the top of the bar behind False-Face. An instant later a sheet of flame rose from behind the bar.
False-Face fired again, and Grant heard Sir Edward's voice scream out, "My leg -- damn the bloody bastard!"
Two more shots echoed into the room. Bottles behind the bar shattered, and the alcohol fed the flames. Tongues of fire shot up and licked at the ceiling as Grant rolled to his right, still doubled up with the pain.
He could see Knight moving, hear him shouting, "You dastardly villian!"
False-Face's gun cracked twice, and Knight, coming in low, slapped the gunhand out and away from his body.
For an instant it looked absurd as Ted Knight and False-Face embraced, locked in combat. Knight's forehead was smeared with blood and sweat.
Grant rolled onto his side, his breath finally starting to come back. He looked up as he tried to stand. The ceiling was awash with fire and tiny droplets of flame were showering down onto the carpet.
He could see Hall, himself wounded, struggling with the shot bobby. It looked like something out of a war movie. Tompkins was getting McNider to his feet, helping him across the burning carpet.
Grant stood to his full height. "Ted!" he shouted.
He started across the room, jumping a burning line of carpet. The sofa was a bed of flames, the far wall by the bar an inferno. Ted Knight had False- Face against the bar, his right fist hammering into False-Face's body again and again.
Both men fell, as a chunk of blazing ceiling came down around them.
Grant searched frantically through the shimmering wall of flame for his friend and fellow JSA member, shouting his name over and over.
And then he saw them. False-Face held a shiny brass fireplace poker aloft in his right hand. As Grant watched helpless to reach Knight in time, the poker hacked downward. Knight tried to block it, but the murderous blow screamed down his forearm and glanced off his temple. Knight fell back, his corded muscles suddenly lifeless and a white pallor spreading over his skin.
Grant charged forward, jumping over the flames, feeling the heat as it seared his skin.
False-Face raised the poker again to crash it down on Ted Knight's head as the senseless man lay in a twisted heap on the rug.
Grant's left hand flicked out like the head of a striking rattlesnake, catching the poker in its deathly swing. A sharp stab of pain raced along his arm like an electric current. He twisted his body half-right, his left foot came up and he stabbed a short kick into False-Face's side, doubling False-Face forward. Grant was still on the move. He spun more than one- hundred and eighty degrees, away from False-Face and back, the edge of his right hand chopping against False-Face's carotid artery. But the force was insufficient, the reach too great to put the Nazi zealot down.
As False-Face stumbled forward, he lurched toward Grant, stabbing the poker at him in a low thrust at death. Grant crossed his arms in a classic blocking position and the poker deflected wide of his groin. Grant turned away, dragging the poker and False-Face's body with him. His left foot kicked and sank into False-Face's abdomen.
False-Face fell back, releasing the poker. His quick hands shot down the hem of the skirt, ripping at it, splitting the side seam. A razor-edged stiletto of gleaming steel caught the tint of red and orange from the flames as it flashed into his hand from inside his nylon-stockinged right thigh.
Legs free of the tight skirt, False-Face's right leg kicked out. Grant leaped backward out of the way as the murderous master of disguise wheeled into a second kick, then another and another. Grant sidestepped and backstepped until he felt the searing heat of the flames at his back.
False-Face's right foot flashed again, and Grant's hand shot out, catching the right ankle. Sidestepping left, Grant snapped his right foot twice into the criminal's groin. Grant then turned all the way left, twisting the leg, pulling False-Face down.
As False-Face fall past him, Grant felt the tingle, then the sharp pain of the stiletto as the blade creased his right bicep.
False-Face was down on the floor, but his left foot kicked up and Grant caught the blow full against his abdomen, reeling back with its force.
The nasty killer was up again and coming, the knife held almost gracefully in his right hand as a fencer would hold a foil. His face was menacing, his lips pulled back into a vicious sneer. There was a flash of movement, and False-Face's body was firing toward him. Grant dodged right, feigned a wheeling movement left and hammered his fist into his opponent's stomach.
False-Face reeled back from the force of the blow from the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, then had the presence of mind to whip the knife around in a sweeping arc of destruction to keep Grant at bay. Ted Grant wheeled 180-degrees right on his left foot, his right kicked against the knife hand, and the stiletto sailed out of False-Face's fist and into the flames.
Grant finished the turn and unleashed the heel of his left hand against the murderer's chin. As False-Face spun away from the punch, Grant's right fist battered against False-Face's rib cage. The bodice of the black dress was wet and sticky.
Ted Grant looked at his knuckles as he snapped back the right, they were red with blood. False-Face's blood.
False-Face stumbled back against a small table, almost losing his balance. He cursed himself for knowing better than to probably try to go toe-to-toe with the likes of a former professional boxer. His face was contorted with pain and his right arm gripped his left side across the chest where Grant had sunk his fist into. False-Face was like a wounded animal as his eyes darted about the room. He thought only of survival and looked only for escape.
Grant reached deep inside himself and summoned up the strength to strike the final blow. And then he heard it, an ominous creaking sound above the roar and hiss of the surrounding conflagration.
He heard Hall's voice yell from beyond the flames, "Grant -- Ted! The bloody chandelier -- the whole ceiling!"
Grant looked up. The ceiling was a sea of flames, smoke curled and billowed from it. An enormous crystal chandelier at its center shimmered and listed as it started to rip away from the burning ceiling.
Ted Grant looked across the room. Beyond a low wall of flame, Ted Knight was moving but not getting up, not getting out of the way.
Grant ran toward him, his left pantleg on fire.
"Ted!" he rasped.
In two quick steps he was behind the six-foot-two out of costume Starman. With nothing but pure adrenaline pumping through his battered muscles, he picked the big man up and tried to run. The roar of the bonfire around him was pierced only by a sickening tear from above.
"The ceiling. My God, Ted!" screamed Sir Edward Hall from the doorway.
Grant stumbled and fell toward the stairs leading down to the entrance hall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glittering chandelier. It was falling, as if in slow motion, dragging with it huge pieces of burning ceiling.
On his knees, his injured friend cradled in his arms, Grant hunched over to shield Knight's face. Slowly, he edged forward getting to his feet. Chunks of burning debris crashed around him and sparks smoldered on the fabric of his jacket. The room was dense with thick gray smoke that seared his lungs. His eyes were stinging, and his face felt as if it was on fire.
Finally, his feet found the stairs leading down and out of the apartment. As he groped his way forward he heard Hall's voice shouting, "Ted! There's a fire ladder by the stairwell!"
He felt arms and hands around him, the burden of Ted Knight's weight lifted from him.
He fell to his knees, coughing, his eyes streaming, but the smoke less dense. Tompkins and Hall were beside him.
Slowly, Grant pushed himself up, coughing, his senses reeling. "False- Face!" He screamed the word back into the apartment, through the roaring wall of flames.
Together, the survivors heard the shattering of glass from inside the apartment, and an instant later a bloodboiling tongue of flame danced and kicked its way through the apartment doorway.
"He must have gone through a window!" said Tompkins.
"False-Face!" Grant shouted. "I've got to know where the nerve gas is!" He made a last desperate attempt to rush the doorway.
Grant felt the two Englishmen grab at him and drag him back from the doorway. He strained, staring into the furnace that had once been Doctor Charles McNider's flat, willing False-Face to stumble through the doorway. Finally, he let himself be taken, dropping forward, supporting himself against the two men.
***
False-Face looked like a bloodied and scorched rag as he hung from the lowest rung of the fire escape at the side of Dr Charles McNider's apartment building.
His eyes winced as he tried to fight off the pain.
Two bobbies raced through the alley beneath him, their footsteps echoing crisply in the winter darkness. They didn't look up. He knew some of his ribs were broken. He'd felt that kind of pain before. His hands were cut and swollen from his desperate fight with Ted Grant, and his legs were scorched and numb where the fire had fused the nylon stockings onto his skin.
False-Face swung from the fire escape until the two policemen had safely rounded a corner. Then he let go. His knees buckled as he dropped the final twelve feet to the pavement.
He pushed himself up and staggered against the alley wall of the building. He was cold, the back of his dress was ripped half away, the skirt torn up the side seam.
He licked his lips.
Johanna Gruber, his convenient identity as a flight attendant, was dead. He hadn't gotten the information he had come for. What was the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world doing breaking into Charles McNider's apartment? Were they friends? The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he had almost made a fatal mistake. He had underestimated Charles McNider and his sources. The crime writer knew many people. People who were dangerous to the health of False-Face.
False-Face edged along the wall toward the street.
The sounds coming from the direction of the roadway told him that firemen and policemen were everywhere. Somewhere out there was Ted Grant. Waiting for him. He winced from the pain that came from his ribs once again.
He fell back against the wall, his breathing was heavy and labored, his left side sticky and cold. He could never escape dressed as he was.
Out on the street he saw a single uniformed bobby standing in the glow of the headlights of a police car parked diagonally in the roadway about fifty feet away from the building.
Shielded from the view by two large fire trucks that blocked the road at the bottom of the alley, False-Face stumbled toward the unsuspecting officer.
He raised his voice, Johanna Gruber's voice one last time. "Help! Help me, officer. Hurry!" He fell forward and rolled onto his back, waiting.
The young bobby rushed to his side and bent over him. As he raised his whistle to signal for aid, False-Face's left hand snapped up, his open palm ramming against the base of the bobby's nose. He saw shock register in the young man's eyes and felt the ethmoid bone splinter beneath his blow.
The policeman died instantly, his brain punctured.
False-Face was on his feet, dragging the young officer into the shadows like a lion with a fresh kill.
He whipped Johanna Gruber's wig from his head and stripped away the remains of her clothes. Within a minute, he was ready to face the world again, a member of the London constabulary.
He allowed a smile to cross his lips, despite the pain in his side.
***
Ted Grant sat on the curb across the street from the burning apartment building and watched his friend and teammate.
Ted Knight had been lucky. He was going to need some proper care, but he was going to be all right.
A bobby ran up to Sir Edward Hall. Hall was on an ambulance gurney, his leg bandaged, but still in command. "Sir," the man reported, "the building is evacuated. Everyone is accounted for except the False-Face chap the American gentleman mentioned."
"He's alive, officer. Don't worry about False-Face," Grant rasped.
Sir Edward turned to look at Grant. "You mentioned something back there about nerve gas. Stolen nerve gas?"
Grant shrugged his shoulders. "All that smoke was getting to me," he replied.
"Why would a former boxer who trains policemen in defensive tactics know anything about stolen nerve gas? And how would you come to know about a wanted fugitive such as False-Face?" Hall was sitting up, his face registering pain.
Grant started to speak, but Dr Charles McNider's voice cut him off. Grant looked up. McNider, wrapped in a blanket, looked as though he was shivering. His voice low, he said, "I'd intended to give you at least a partial briefing. Apparently it'll have to be now."
"Briefing?" Hall looked up at McNider.
Grant looked at McNider's eyes. He could tell that without the special dark glasses, he was truly blind. "Yes," he said, "but before that, you must contact MI6 to see if the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tipped anything to the British secret service."
"Secret Intelligence Service?" quizzed Hall. "What the devil would SIS have to do with all this?" He waved his arm toward the still-burning apartment house.
Grant crouched down beside Hall's gurney. "Sir Edward," he whispered. "A few months ago, there were one hundred canisters of VX nerve gas being taken to a military base in New Mexico. False-Face and his gang of neo- Nazi's intercepted the shipment and stole them all. Charles, Ted here --" he gestured toward his friend, now standing behind him "-- and I are quietly investigating their disappearance. We understand that a group of so- called mystery men were able to stop False-Face from using some of the nerve gas in Gateway City."
"Good God, man," said an incredulous Hall.
Grant grinned. "But don't tell anybody until you get clearance," he cautioned.
"Mystery men?" Hall asked. "Do you mean like that chap dressed in a cat suit who resolved the hostage crisis at Marchand's some months back?"
Ted Grant smiled and nodded. He then looked up at McNider, who was standing beside him. He wondered how the out of costume Dr Mid-Nite must feel after having been taken in so completely by False-Face.
Grant started to say something, when he heard the shrillness of police whistles coming down the street to his right, near the alley that ran alongside the burning apartment building.
Suddenly he was up, and started to run.
Ahead, he could see Tompkins, and around him a knot of uniformed officers. Grant broke through and stood beside Tompkins.
Lying in the alley, an ambulance attendant beside him, was a young man. That he was dead was obvious. The body, oddly pink against the blackness of the alley, was stripped naked. Not far away, hanging from a trash can, was a bloodstained woman's slip, a torn dress and an auburn wig.
Grant felt a motion beside him and turned. It was Hall, two bobbies supporting him on his injured leg.
Hall whispered, "My God, False-Face has escaped -- as one of us."
Tompkins spoke. "I've ordered the entire area sealed off."
Grant turned a grim smile on the law enforcement specialist of the Home Office. "What the hell good does that do?" he demanded as anger swelled up inside him. "If you've got cops cordoning off the area, it's better than even money False-Face is one of them. He's probably killed someone else by now and taken a fresh set of clothes. He could be anybody. He's so good he could be one of us," he cried.
Ted Grant wanted to strike out at somebody. Hard.
To be continued ...
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 2
Charles McNider smoothed his shirt under the waistband of his gray flannel slacks as he walked across the room.
The door bell rang.
As he donned his jacket, McNider walked down the three stairs that led from the living room to the small hallway entrance.
McNider stopped at the doorway as the bell rang again. He caught his breath, straightened the midnight-blue ascot and the collar of his pale- blue shirt, the brass-buttoned blazer he left open as he reached for the doorknob.
He opened the door to Johanna Gruber. Though he was supposed to be blind, McNider could see through his special dark glasses that the woman at his door was tall. The figure was pleasant, the face beautiful, he thought. Her hair was rich, full -- and he thought auburn -- though it was a little hard to tell from the tint of his special glasses. As he stepped into the doorway to welcome her, he could smell her perfume. It was the perfume she had worn aboard that flight from Germany some weeks back.
It really wasn't that long ago, but the world had changed. False-Face had stolen one hundred canisters of the deadly VX nerve gas from a U.S. government shipment and would have released the contents of one of the canisters in Gateway City, had it not been for the efforts of the Justice Society of America. But False-Face had gotten away.
McNider suddenly realized the woman was staring at him. "Is there anything wrong, Charles? You did expect me?" The voice was warm, soft and inviting.
"Expect you. My dear, I have anticipated you since that wonderful telephone call." He pretended to search for her left elbow with his right hand to usher her inside. She wore a luxurious gray fur coat, the kind with the pelts sewn laterally rather than vertically, trimmed with black leather. She looked wonderful in it, he thought. As he helped her out the coat he said, "May I, my dear?"
"Yes, thank you, Charles," came the soft reply.
As she turned to face him, she smiled.
McNider stepped back from her, but only a half step. She wore a black dress, the hem falling just slightly below her knees. A single strand of rich white pearls caressed a long alabaster neck. Pearl earrings to match graced her ears. The black leather handbag she clutched perfectly matched her shoes, which were high heeled. She was taller than he, he realized as he turned back to face her after he had hung her coat in the entrance closet.
"You look lovely," he told her, almost compelled to say that.
"Thank you, Charles. You flatter me. But ... but how can you tell?" She smiled again.
Realizing that he was supposed to appear blind, McNider replied, "I can tell by the sound of your voice."
Even the faintness of her German accent had something appealing about it, something very European that was hard to define. "Are we alone?" she asked, her left hand gently primping her hair.
"Of course we are, my dear. May I offer you a drink?"
"All right," she said, and still clutching her leather bag she walked with him up the three steps leading to the living room.
It was a spacious and well-designed apartment. Dr McNider spent much time in London doing research for his crime articles and mystery novels that he wrote. The flat was much better than any small hotel room.
McNider steered her toward the bar at the far side of the room. The apartment was perfect for an intimate dinner.
"I wonder what you might like to drink, Fraulein Gruber," he asked.
"Johanna," she corrected. "Perhaps a glass of white wine, Charles. Whatever you might choose for me."
"White wine it is. A Chablis perhaps, or something more German -- a Hock as they were once called. A Rheinhessen?"
"Rhine wine, I like that." She smiled.
McNider found a bottle of Rhine and began to pour it into a glass.
"You amaze me, Charles! How can you tell when to stop pouring before you spill?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "Many years of practice, my dear."
They had moved to the couch, and McNider sat beside her not knowing what to say. Something about her was totally different from other women he had met.
He tried to compose himself when he started to hear the screeching tone of a telephone that had been left off the hook.
"The phone," he said, "I must have forgotten to replace the receiver after I --"
He heard a sneeze from beside him, a tiny sneeze calculated to draw his attention.
Doctor McNider turned and looked at Johanna. She was smiling, picking up her handbag from the coffee table. Opening her handbag, she started to pick through it with her long fingers. "One of the difficulties of my profession," she said. "I move from place to place so frequently, I never seem to adjust to the climate."
"Perhaps I should turn up the heat a bit or maybe I can write you a prescription if you know of any allergies that you may have," responded McNider. "I'd imagine being an airline hostess does take its toll in the sniffs-and-sneezes department." He smiled, starting to rise.
Charles McNider felt himself freeze in midmotion. The gun in Johanna's right hand was poking him in the ribs.
"Yes, being a flight attendant is difficult, but being a wanted fugitive is even worse -- Charles." The voice was a man's, Germanic, cultured, calculating.
"My God!" McNider exclaimed.
"Go ahead," the voice came back, "guess who I am."
"Johanna," stammered McNider, "False-Face!"
False-Face still looking like the beautiful Johanna, laughed, insanely loud. "Not bad for a blind man! I was afraid you were going to try to get into my pants before you found out."
"Damn you!" McNider rasped. He threw himself at False-Face, clawing for the gun, but False-Face was quicker. As he sprang up from the couch, the pistol hammered against the right side of McNider's head.
McNider rolled to the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table.
He started to his feet, but the muzzle of the pistol was quickly pressing between his eyes and he remained motionless, on his knees. He cursed himself for being fooled so badly.
"Charles," taunted False-Face, "you are going to die, and however rapidly or slowly death comes to you is entirely of your own making. I need to know all that you, and your numerous law enforcement sources know, everything dealing with my theft of the VX nerve gas canisters -- all of it." Then the voice changed to Johanna's again, and McNider was filled with revulsion. "Please, Charles," False-Face cooed.
***
Dr Charles McNider opened his eyes. The needle False-Face had jabbed into his neck made him feel vaguely hung over.
False-Face sat on a barstool. McNider realized he was on the floor and his dark glasses were gone. He was now truly blind. He tried to move, but his hands were tied behind him. His ankles were bound, as well. He tried to speak, but there was something covering his mouth. Adhesive tape, he guessed.
Beside False-Face, on the bar, was the gas-flamed chafing dish the caterer would have used to keep the poulet Marengo hot.
If McNider could see, his eyes would had focused on the tiny object that was in the criminal's hand.
"Having trouble, Charles?" False-Face spoke in Johanna's voice again, and then his own. "If you could see, my friend, what I have in my hands is an ordinary kitchen skewer. Allow me to describe in delicious detail what I will be doing since you are as a blind as a bat!" False-Face's face suddenly scowled. "Bat? I shouldn't remind myself of my primary nemesis from Gotham City. Ah, but I digress, Charles. I'm heating several of these skewers in the flame beneath the chafing dish. The chicken smells wonderful, by the way. My compliments to your caterer. If you have time, you might divulge who your caterer is, too. We have no time for drug therapy, as you physcians may say, to induce your truthfulness, and with some people -- as I'm sure you know, doctor -- certain drugs can indeed induce a heart attack -- and I don't wish you dead yet. I need the information that I am sure that you can provide far too greatly to risk your demise."
False-Face smiled. If McNider could had seen it -- it was Johanna's smile.
McNider felt sick at False-Face's words.
"Before I begin with the red-hot skewers," False-Face continued, "the testicles perhaps, or the inner ear, and soon the eyeballs themselves." In a whimsical motion, False-Face covered his mouth with the palm of his left hand. "Oops, I forgot. You're already blind!" He laughed insanely loud again.
The criminal tormentor continued on, "But before the fun and games, Charles, a word of advice. If the Hindus are right, and we return to this life again, and should you come back as a man instead of an ass, I might suggest that you ask a woman out only after you've first seen her in the nude."
False-Face laughed, but it was Johanna's higher-pitched laugh. False-Face rose from the barstool with what McNider interpreted with his ears as a calculated taunt, smoothing his hands along his thighs. False-Face picked up one of the skewers and moved the few steps to him before dropping to his knees on the carpet. In his hands, False-Face held the red-hot, glowing skewer.
McNider suddenly realized he was naked except for his boxer shorts and over- the-calf gray socks.
He couldn't see the skewer, but in a searing stab of pain, he could feel it on his chest. He wanted to scream, but the tape covering his mouth made him gag.
***
The rotorthrob sound of the helicopter's blades seemed more pronounced to him now as the chopper moved low over the tree line. Ted Grant felt his stomach heave as the helicopter suddenly dipped, skimming the close-cropped grass, settling in beyond Marble Arch in a corner of Hyde Park. Doctor Charles McNider's apartment was less than four blocks away in Shepherd's Park.
As the forward tip of the runner touched, Grant popped open the seat restraint, pushed the cabin door open and ducked as he jumped under the spinning rotors. He glanced back once. Inspector Hall and Tompkins of the Home Office were racing out behind him. Following them came two uniformed officers.
Grant could hear Hall shouting to him, "Out of the park and three blocks straight down -- should be the far side of the street -- but I'll have a car here in under five minutes."
"No time," Grant shouted back. His Wildcat equipment was still with his luggage back at Heathrow.
If False-Face was with Dr Charles McNider, it was for one purpose only -- information about the investigation of the theft of the ninety-nine reamaining canisters of VX nerve gas. And after he got the information, or if by some miracle McNider was able to hold it back -- death!
Grant was now out of the park, skidding on his heels. He ran, looking up the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ted Knight come up fast beside him.
A hundred yards, then across the street -- that was all the distance that remained. Grant recognized the number of the building from Charles McNider's address. He dodged a truck and reached the middle of the street.
He had to stop for an instant as a van bore down on him. He glanced behind him to see Knight skirt a classic MG. Hall, Tompkins and the two bobbies were at the curb, coming into the street.
The van passed, and Grant brushed a Bentley's rear bumper. He threaded his way between a parked vintage Rover and an Austin, and leaped up the curb.
He half sagged against the frosted-glass doorway of the red brick Victorian apartment house. The door was locked.
"The bell," he heard Knight pant.
"We try the bell, False-Face'll know," Grant gasped in reply.
There were four bells indicating four apartments, each occupying its own floor. McNider had the top floor, Grant remembered.
One of the bobbies was up beside him and Grant reached toward the man, grabbing his truncheon. "Gimme that, corporal." Grant rammed the club into the glass near the door handle. A jagged hole about the size of a grapefruit appeared. He quickly pushed his arm through, found the inside handle and released the lock.
Withdrawing his hand, he threw his weight against the door, half stumbling inside.
The floors and parts of the walls were composed of tiny segments of sparkling white and deep black tiles.
A massive frost-glass globe hung from the ceiling and shed a soft glow over the foyer. An elevator encased in ornate brass caging and a winding staircase presented themselves to the left.
Grant raced toward the stairs. "This way, hurry," he shouted, hearing Tompkins barking some sort of order behind him. Ted Knight and the corporal were nearest to Grant as he raced up the staircase three treads at a time.
He reached the first landing, swung around it and continued to climb. The elevator would have been too slow, and the noise might have alerted False- Face causing him to kill if he hadn't already.
At the second landing Knight was outdistancing him, moving at incredible speed up the stairs. He was moving like it was a matter of life and death -- because it was.
Knight was past the landing now running, at such an angle that he appeared to be throwing himself ahead.
Grant was taking two steps at a time. His arms were pulling him along the handrailing. He reached the landing. The bobby was beside him.
At the top, Grant stumbled forward. He saw Knight already standing beside the door. Grant sagged back against the wall opposite the door and held his hand up to signal two policemen to wait.
Grant started for the door, took a long step forward, put his weight on his right foot, and pivoted half right, his left foot snaking up toward the center of the lockplate in a martial arts kick.
As he spun out of the kick, the door burst open and Ted Knight flew past him.
Grant rushed in behind him. A woman, tall and beautiful, held a kitchen skewer. McNider was writhing on the carpet, the scant blond hair on his chest on fire.
Ted Grant felt his jaw set as Knight dived toward the woman. But the woman, who had to be False-Face, stepped aside as Knight hurtled over and landed on McNider and smothering the flames on his chest.
False-Face raised his pistol and Grant threw himself into a forward roll as the gun thundered over his head.
As Grant came out of the roll at the edge of the coffee table, he saw one of the bobbies go down, and heard a cry of pain.
Grant's arm shot up, the edge of his left hand connecting hard against the inside of False-Face's forearm, deflecting the muzzle of the gun. Another shot rang out, and the large mirror above the fireplace exploded into tiny spikes of lethal glass like a fragmentation grenade.
Ted Grant's right fist shot forward, the middle knuckles going for the center of the feminine-looking face. The auburn head snapped back, and Grant felt a stabbing surge of pain in his groin. He threw himself left as he went down, seeing a second kick miss, its high arc restricted by the tight skirt. Grant realized the skirt was all that saved him from having been crippled by the death-merchant's vicious kick.
A look of surprise came over the woman's face as she appeared to recognize Ted Grant. "The heavweight champion of the world?!" she exclaimed.
A pistol coughed from behind him, Sir Edward Hall's weapon. False-Face threw himself to the right, and back, and the shot whispered past. Grant saw the impact as the chafing dish crashed off the top of the bar behind False-Face. An instant later a sheet of flame rose from behind the bar.
False-Face fired again, and Grant heard Sir Edward's voice scream out, "My leg -- damn the bloody bastard!"
Two more shots echoed into the room. Bottles behind the bar shattered, and the alcohol fed the flames. Tongues of fire shot up and licked at the ceiling as Grant rolled to his right, still doubled up with the pain.
He could see Knight moving, hear him shouting, "You dastardly villian!"
False-Face's gun cracked twice, and Knight, coming in low, slapped the gunhand out and away from his body.
For an instant it looked absurd as Ted Knight and False-Face embraced, locked in combat. Knight's forehead was smeared with blood and sweat.
Grant rolled onto his side, his breath finally starting to come back. He looked up as he tried to stand. The ceiling was awash with fire and tiny droplets of flame were showering down onto the carpet.
He could see Hall, himself wounded, struggling with the shot bobby. It looked like something out of a war movie. Tompkins was getting McNider to his feet, helping him across the burning carpet.
Grant stood to his full height. "Ted!" he shouted.
He started across the room, jumping a burning line of carpet. The sofa was a bed of flames, the far wall by the bar an inferno. Ted Knight had False- Face against the bar, his right fist hammering into False-Face's body again and again.
Both men fell, as a chunk of blazing ceiling came down around them.
Grant searched frantically through the shimmering wall of flame for his friend and fellow JSA member, shouting his name over and over.
And then he saw them. False-Face held a shiny brass fireplace poker aloft in his right hand. As Grant watched helpless to reach Knight in time, the poker hacked downward. Knight tried to block it, but the murderous blow screamed down his forearm and glanced off his temple. Knight fell back, his corded muscles suddenly lifeless and a white pallor spreading over his skin.
Grant charged forward, jumping over the flames, feeling the heat as it seared his skin.
False-Face raised the poker again to crash it down on Ted Knight's head as the senseless man lay in a twisted heap on the rug.
Grant's left hand flicked out like the head of a striking rattlesnake, catching the poker in its deathly swing. A sharp stab of pain raced along his arm like an electric current. He twisted his body half-right, his left foot came up and he stabbed a short kick into False-Face's side, doubling False-Face forward. Grant was still on the move. He spun more than one- hundred and eighty degrees, away from False-Face and back, the edge of his right hand chopping against False-Face's carotid artery. But the force was insufficient, the reach too great to put the Nazi zealot down.
As False-Face stumbled forward, he lurched toward Grant, stabbing the poker at him in a low thrust at death. Grant crossed his arms in a classic blocking position and the poker deflected wide of his groin. Grant turned away, dragging the poker and False-Face's body with him. His left foot kicked and sank into False-Face's abdomen.
False-Face fell back, releasing the poker. His quick hands shot down the hem of the skirt, ripping at it, splitting the side seam. A razor-edged stiletto of gleaming steel caught the tint of red and orange from the flames as it flashed into his hand from inside his nylon-stockinged right thigh.
Legs free of the tight skirt, False-Face's right leg kicked out. Grant leaped backward out of the way as the murderous master of disguise wheeled into a second kick, then another and another. Grant sidestepped and backstepped until he felt the searing heat of the flames at his back.
False-Face's right foot flashed again, and Grant's hand shot out, catching the right ankle. Sidestepping left, Grant snapped his right foot twice into the criminal's groin. Grant then turned all the way left, twisting the leg, pulling False-Face down.
As False-Face fall past him, Grant felt the tingle, then the sharp pain of the stiletto as the blade creased his right bicep.
False-Face was down on the floor, but his left foot kicked up and Grant caught the blow full against his abdomen, reeling back with its force.
The nasty killer was up again and coming, the knife held almost gracefully in his right hand as a fencer would hold a foil. His face was menacing, his lips pulled back into a vicious sneer. There was a flash of movement, and False-Face's body was firing toward him. Grant dodged right, feigned a wheeling movement left and hammered his fist into his opponent's stomach.
False-Face reeled back from the force of the blow from the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, then had the presence of mind to whip the knife around in a sweeping arc of destruction to keep Grant at bay. Ted Grant wheeled 180-degrees right on his left foot, his right kicked against the knife hand, and the stiletto sailed out of False-Face's fist and into the flames.
Grant finished the turn and unleashed the heel of his left hand against the murderer's chin. As False-Face spun away from the punch, Grant's right fist battered against False-Face's rib cage. The bodice of the black dress was wet and sticky.
Ted Grant looked at his knuckles as he snapped back the right, they were red with blood. False-Face's blood.
False-Face stumbled back against a small table, almost losing his balance. He cursed himself for knowing better than to probably try to go toe-to-toe with the likes of a former professional boxer. His face was contorted with pain and his right arm gripped his left side across the chest where Grant had sunk his fist into. False-Face was like a wounded animal as his eyes darted about the room. He thought only of survival and looked only for escape.
Grant reached deep inside himself and summoned up the strength to strike the final blow. And then he heard it, an ominous creaking sound above the roar and hiss of the surrounding conflagration.
He heard Hall's voice yell from beyond the flames, "Grant -- Ted! The bloody chandelier -- the whole ceiling!"
Grant looked up. The ceiling was a sea of flames, smoke curled and billowed from it. An enormous crystal chandelier at its center shimmered and listed as it started to rip away from the burning ceiling.
Ted Grant looked across the room. Beyond a low wall of flame, Ted Knight was moving but not getting up, not getting out of the way.
Grant ran toward him, his left pantleg on fire.
"Ted!" he rasped.
In two quick steps he was behind the six-foot-two out of costume Starman. With nothing but pure adrenaline pumping through his battered muscles, he picked the big man up and tried to run. The roar of the bonfire around him was pierced only by a sickening tear from above.
"The ceiling. My God, Ted!" screamed Sir Edward Hall from the doorway.
Grant stumbled and fell toward the stairs leading down to the entrance hall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glittering chandelier. It was falling, as if in slow motion, dragging with it huge pieces of burning ceiling.
On his knees, his injured friend cradled in his arms, Grant hunched over to shield Knight's face. Slowly, he edged forward getting to his feet. Chunks of burning debris crashed around him and sparks smoldered on the fabric of his jacket. The room was dense with thick gray smoke that seared his lungs. His eyes were stinging, and his face felt as if it was on fire.
Finally, his feet found the stairs leading down and out of the apartment. As he groped his way forward he heard Hall's voice shouting, "Ted! There's a fire ladder by the stairwell!"
He felt arms and hands around him, the burden of Ted Knight's weight lifted from him.
He fell to his knees, coughing, his eyes streaming, but the smoke less dense. Tompkins and Hall were beside him.
Slowly, Grant pushed himself up, coughing, his senses reeling. "False- Face!" He screamed the word back into the apartment, through the roaring wall of flames.
Together, the survivors heard the shattering of glass from inside the apartment, and an instant later a bloodboiling tongue of flame danced and kicked its way through the apartment doorway.
"He must have gone through a window!" said Tompkins.
"False-Face!" Grant shouted. "I've got to know where the nerve gas is!" He made a last desperate attempt to rush the doorway.
Grant felt the two Englishmen grab at him and drag him back from the doorway. He strained, staring into the furnace that had once been Doctor Charles McNider's flat, willing False-Face to stumble through the doorway. Finally, he let himself be taken, dropping forward, supporting himself against the two men.
***
False-Face looked like a bloodied and scorched rag as he hung from the lowest rung of the fire escape at the side of Dr Charles McNider's apartment building.
His eyes winced as he tried to fight off the pain.
Two bobbies raced through the alley beneath him, their footsteps echoing crisply in the winter darkness. They didn't look up. He knew some of his ribs were broken. He'd felt that kind of pain before. His hands were cut and swollen from his desperate fight with Ted Grant, and his legs were scorched and numb where the fire had fused the nylon stockings onto his skin.
False-Face swung from the fire escape until the two policemen had safely rounded a corner. Then he let go. His knees buckled as he dropped the final twelve feet to the pavement.
He pushed himself up and staggered against the alley wall of the building. He was cold, the back of his dress was ripped half away, the skirt torn up the side seam.
He licked his lips.
Johanna Gruber, his convenient identity as a flight attendant, was dead. He hadn't gotten the information he had come for. What was the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world doing breaking into Charles McNider's apartment? Were they friends? The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he had almost made a fatal mistake. He had underestimated Charles McNider and his sources. The crime writer knew many people. People who were dangerous to the health of False-Face.
False-Face edged along the wall toward the street.
The sounds coming from the direction of the roadway told him that firemen and policemen were everywhere. Somewhere out there was Ted Grant. Waiting for him. He winced from the pain that came from his ribs once again.
He fell back against the wall, his breathing was heavy and labored, his left side sticky and cold. He could never escape dressed as he was.
Out on the street he saw a single uniformed bobby standing in the glow of the headlights of a police car parked diagonally in the roadway about fifty feet away from the building.
Shielded from the view by two large fire trucks that blocked the road at the bottom of the alley, False-Face stumbled toward the unsuspecting officer.
He raised his voice, Johanna Gruber's voice one last time. "Help! Help me, officer. Hurry!" He fell forward and rolled onto his back, waiting.
The young bobby rushed to his side and bent over him. As he raised his whistle to signal for aid, False-Face's left hand snapped up, his open palm ramming against the base of the bobby's nose. He saw shock register in the young man's eyes and felt the ethmoid bone splinter beneath his blow.
The policeman died instantly, his brain punctured.
False-Face was on his feet, dragging the young officer into the shadows like a lion with a fresh kill.
He whipped Johanna Gruber's wig from his head and stripped away the remains of her clothes. Within a minute, he was ready to face the world again, a member of the London constabulary.
He allowed a smile to cross his lips, despite the pain in his side.
***
Ted Grant sat on the curb across the street from the burning apartment building and watched his friend and teammate.
Ted Knight had been lucky. He was going to need some proper care, but he was going to be all right.
A bobby ran up to Sir Edward Hall. Hall was on an ambulance gurney, his leg bandaged, but still in command. "Sir," the man reported, "the building is evacuated. Everyone is accounted for except the False-Face chap the American gentleman mentioned."
"He's alive, officer. Don't worry about False-Face," Grant rasped.
Sir Edward turned to look at Grant. "You mentioned something back there about nerve gas. Stolen nerve gas?"
Grant shrugged his shoulders. "All that smoke was getting to me," he replied.
"Why would a former boxer who trains policemen in defensive tactics know anything about stolen nerve gas? And how would you come to know about a wanted fugitive such as False-Face?" Hall was sitting up, his face registering pain.
Grant started to speak, but Dr Charles McNider's voice cut him off. Grant looked up. McNider, wrapped in a blanket, looked as though he was shivering. His voice low, he said, "I'd intended to give you at least a partial briefing. Apparently it'll have to be now."
"Briefing?" Hall looked up at McNider.
Grant looked at McNider's eyes. He could tell that without the special dark glasses, he was truly blind. "Yes," he said, "but before that, you must contact MI6 to see if the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tipped anything to the British secret service."
"Secret Intelligence Service?" quizzed Hall. "What the devil would SIS have to do with all this?" He waved his arm toward the still-burning apartment house.
Grant crouched down beside Hall's gurney. "Sir Edward," he whispered. "A few months ago, there were one hundred canisters of VX nerve gas being taken to a military base in New Mexico. False-Face and his gang of neo- Nazi's intercepted the shipment and stole them all. Charles, Ted here --" he gestured toward his friend, now standing behind him "-- and I are quietly investigating their disappearance. We understand that a group of so- called mystery men were able to stop False-Face from using some of the nerve gas in Gateway City."
"Good God, man," said an incredulous Hall.
Grant grinned. "But don't tell anybody until you get clearance," he cautioned.
"Mystery men?" Hall asked. "Do you mean like that chap dressed in a cat suit who resolved the hostage crisis at Marchand's some months back?"
Ted Grant smiled and nodded. He then looked up at McNider, who was standing beside him. He wondered how the out of costume Dr Mid-Nite must feel after having been taken in so completely by False-Face.
Grant started to say something, when he heard the shrillness of police whistles coming down the street to his right, near the alley that ran alongside the burning apartment building.
Suddenly he was up, and started to run.
Ahead, he could see Tompkins, and around him a knot of uniformed officers. Grant broke through and stood beside Tompkins.
Lying in the alley, an ambulance attendant beside him, was a young man. That he was dead was obvious. The body, oddly pink against the blackness of the alley, was stripped naked. Not far away, hanging from a trash can, was a bloodstained woman's slip, a torn dress and an auburn wig.
Grant felt a motion beside him and turned. It was Hall, two bobbies supporting him on his injured leg.
Hall whispered, "My God, False-Face has escaped -- as one of us."
Tompkins spoke. "I've ordered the entire area sealed off."
Grant turned a grim smile on the law enforcement specialist of the Home Office. "What the hell good does that do?" he demanded as anger swelled up inside him. "If you've got cops cordoning off the area, it's better than even money False-Face is one of them. He's probably killed someone else by now and taken a fresh set of clothes. He could be anybody. He's so good he could be one of us," he cried.
Ted Grant wanted to strike out at somebody. Hard.
To be continued ...