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.
***
AUTHOR'S NOTES TO CHAPTER 3: Before beginning the third chapter, I'd like to point out a few things to my Elseworld's tale. First, Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred initially had no last name when he was first introduced. He was given the surname "Beagle" in Detective Comics #96 in February 1945. Although the name of his Earth- One counterpart was later said to be Pennyworth, the Earth-Two Alfred (the one in this story), as established in Superman Family #211 in October 1981, was Alfred Beagle. So, I decided to stick with the Beagle name in my universe story.
Next, I am very aware that in the accepted DC Earth-Two universe, Bruce Wayne went on to marry Selina Kyle (Catwoman) and they eventually had a child named Helena, who became the Huntress.
While I don't dismiss this continuity outright, I wanted, in my writings, to explore a relationship between Bruce Wayne and Kathy Kane. Selina Kyle will play a very important part in this story and in Bruce Wayne's life. Stay tuned.
***
Chapter 3
The Gotham City International Airport was crowded, but Bruce Wayne, as he moved away from customs with his suitcase and attache case in his hands, wasn't worried that he'd miss his driver. A moment later he saw him, standing dignified among the tourists and business travelers.
Bruce knew that Alfred Beagle saw him. But Alfred remained motionless. He was, as usual, imppecably dressed in a black suit.
Bruce Wayne threaded his way through the crowd and stopped three feet in front of Alfred. The butler/chauffer greeted him with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Master Bruce."
"I might well say the same, Alfred."
"Mrs Wayne has sent me to collect you, sir." The voice was very British sounding.
Alfred reached out with his left hand and took the suitcase from his long- time employer, and Bruce released it to him.
"I have the car waiting for us, sir. I suggest we get on." Alfred turned and started through the crowd, as if oblivious to it, cutting a wedge through the traffic. Bruce followed closely in the butler's wake.
"I hope everything has been alright since I've been out of town," Bruce asked once they got into the Rolls Royce.
"Most assuredly, sir," Alfred answered as he pressed the power-window button and Bruce's back-seat window on the passenger side went down three inches.
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he turned a reproving glance on the back of Alfred's head. But he said nothing and looked away.
Bruce Wayne studied where Alfred was heading with the automobile for a moment.
"How is she?" Bruce asked after a while.
There was no need to say her name. Both men knew who they were talking about. Kathy Kane Wayne, a slinky, sexy, female crimefighter who had smuggled her way into Bruce Wayne's life as Batwoman. It seemed to Bruce that with his duties as both a millionaire industralist and as Batman, they were apart more often than they were together. But when they were together, they were never very far apart.
It was a long moment before Alfred spoke. "Mrs Wayne is well, Master Bruce," he finally said. "If anything, her beauty has increased since you last saw her."
Bruce looked back at Alfred. He smiled as he watched his confidant thread the Rolls Royce through a knot of traffic and into the clear again.
"Anything happen in Gotham while I was gone?" Bruce asked.
"While reading some police reports that came in through your usual sources," replied Alfred calmly, "I noticed that someone had attempted to kill Catwoman."
"Kill Selina?" Bruce asked surprised. "Why would anyone want to do that?"
Alfred exhaled long and hard. "From what I understand, there have been two attempts on her life recently," he said. "One can surmise that the first was merely a hazard of her trade. A disgruntled low bidder apparently sent a talentless assassin to compensate Catwoman for not selling him a gem he wished to acquire. The second, however, is uncertain, but appears to had come from a European nation. The first man reportedly was killed falling from the roof of a building. The second man confronted Catwoman and was dispatched rather quickly with two broken legs."
Bruce stared out the window and listened to the slipstream whistle behind them.
Finally he asked, "I wonder why she doesn't get out of the jewel theft trade? She's probably made enough money to live like a princess for the rest of her life."
"Catwoman," Alfred began in his sometimes sarcastic voice to Bruce, and said, "has not confided this reason to me, and it is, of course, not my position to inquire of her."
It was the end of the conversation, like a bell dinging, Bruce thought. His mind, for some reason, drifted to the events in London a week ago. He had read a JSA report from Wildcat about what had happened. Starman had mended well, but the doctors had warned him to take it easy for a while. Sir Edward Hall, a top flight policeman that Bruce Wayne knew through his connections with Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, was on crutches, but he too would recover. Dr Charles McNider's pride hurt more than any of his wounds, and he went around blaming himself for the whole debacle until Bruce called him and told him that False-Face could fool anyone with his disguises -- including Batman.
Then he thought of False-Face and his lips tightened. False-Face was a scum, a megalomaniac bent on one course. He would either crush the innocent people of the world under his jackbooted heel, or he would tear them apart in the process. But not if Batman and the Justice Society of America had anything to say about it.
***
Kathy Wayne stood motionless in front of her dressing-room mirror. Her rich black hair tumbled down to her bare shoulders. She admired her body. She was proud of it, proud of the things it could do.
She picked up a pair of gray linen slacks from the chair beside the mirror and began to slip them on. Her legs were long and well-shaped, the thighs firm and the skin taut over her sinewy muscles. Her calves tapered down to slim ankles.
She pulled the waistband over her narrow hips, the pants hugging her behind and snuggling into her crotch. Her stomach was smooth and firm beneath her hands as she buttoned the pants. She worked hard at staying in peak condition as Batwoman.
Next came a pink wool sweater with a V-neck and dolman sleeves. For some reason, she always felt freer and easier in its bulky, loose-fitting form. As she raised her arms to pull it on, she caught the profile of her breasts in the mirror. They were full and firm, the pure white skin extending to large pink nipples.
She slipped the sweater over her head and felt the fine wool brush tantalizingly against her skin. She tossed her head and shook her shiny hair free of the neckline.
Around her long slender neck, she wore a finely sculpted platninum necklace. Just a hint of makeup highlighted her features. Her high cheekbones, the ones that could have made her a million-dollar-a-year fashion model, had she not only been rich in her own right before she even met Bruce Wayne, showed just a slight blush of pink. Her lips were full and red and inviting. Her light-blue eyes were bright but distant, as if she were suddenly focusing on the next few hours.
Her tongue played on her lips.
"Bruce," she whispered to her own reflection. A sparkle flashed in her eyes when she said his name.
***
They had driven along the side of the Gotham River on a road that extended toward Wayne Manor, in the northern suburbs of Gotham City. Once out of heavier traffic, Alfred maintained the Rolls Royce at just below fifty miles per hour. The watch on Bruce's left wrist indicated that nearly half an hour had elapsed.
The road had taken them through a mixture of wooded areas and stately homes of the rich.
He didn't look at Alfred as he asked him, "How much longer, do you suppose?"
"Another five minutes, Master Bruce," replied Alfred.
Alfred's British accent seemed a bit stronger now. "It is not my position, of course, but as regards to Catwoman ..." Alfred shifted his gaze from the road to the rearview mirror and Bruce Wayne as he spoke, Bruce watching him.
"Do I intend to look into the attempts on her life?" Bruce asked.
"Perhaps not in those exact words, but the spirit is there, yes," Alfred said.
"It depends on whether or not she cooperates or wishes the help of Batman, doesn't it?" Bruce knew it was a little silly, but he didn't want to give Alfred the satisfaction of a straight answer. He knew the past history between The Batman and Catwoman.
A huge mansion came into view. It had been nearly a week since he had seen Kathy.
He stepped out of the Rolls Royce onto the driveway and took it all in, the security fences, the landscaping designed for privacy. He had just turned his attention to the front of the house itself when one of a pair of dark double doors swung open. A figure stood in the doorway, stealing the brillance away from the setting sun.
Kathy Wayne.
Bruce started to walk toward her. She stood just inside the doorway for an instant longer, then started through, across the shallow granite of the wide top step.
He stopped, still several yards from the steps, staring at this fascinatingly beautiful creature who stood at the base of the steps, her hands hugging her shoulders with her arms crossed over her chest.
Bruce realized he had been holding his breath. As he exhaled, he saw steam rise from his lips.
"Kathy," he called out.
"Bruce," she responded, "come put your arms around me before I take a chill. Please."
Bruce walked up to her.
Her hair shone, rich, dark and full. Her eyes as blue as the winter sky, held him like a vise.
He drew her close to him. She was doing it, what she always could do.
Bruce kissed her hard, tasting her mouth, wanting to devour her.
Kathy responded.
***
One of the two Americans, the one called Jack Knight, had a concussion and had been in a hospital for observation, False-Face had learned through his sources in London's right-wing underground. False-Face wished he had killed him. The other one, the ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Ted Grant, had flown back to New York City, to his gym in the "Big Apple." His dossier on Grant revealed that he was a friend of Dr Charles McNider. Were the two of them -- and who else -- working together to find him? Was there any connection between them and those mystery men who foiled his plan in Gateway City a few months ago? False-Face wasn't sure.
Dr Charles McNider was a world renown crime writer and had very high- ranking sources in law enforcement circles throughout the world. Was he employing Ted Grant to be his bodyguard or something? That was logical. And what of this Ted Knight? False-Face's sources believed Knight to be a millionaire who liked to dabble in astronomy.
His back turned against a seventh-century fresco of the Virgin and John beneath the cross, False-Face rested his bearded chin in his left hand as he "meditated" in the small chamber at the side of the Greek Orthodox church.
He studied the wristwatch he had pinned under the flowing black cossack he wore. It was time to go.
He stood slowly to befit his years, adjusting the set of his flat crowned miter.
He hunched forward slightly as he walked with the support of a walking stick. He nodded and raised his right hand in blessing as he passed out of the door amid a throng of women. They were professional mourners. One day he would provide the stupid women with something they could really mourn over.
False-Face moved ahead into the narrow cobbled street, turned to his right and walked down the slight hill.
He thread his way along the maze of noisy streets for ten minutes and soon he could see the night blackness of the Sea of Crete stretched below him like a sinister abyss. The sleazy cafes acted as a buffer between the blackness of the water and the dingy grayness of the nighttime Rethimnone itself.
False-Face skirted the open front of the nearest of the cafes, returning the smiles and good wishes of the revelers as they noticed him, the old priest. The clinking of glasses and the high-pitched forced laughter of young girls who sat with dark-faced, mustachioed young men fought for precedence over the blaring Western rock music. He thought that the song he was hearing was from some new English group called The Beatles or something.
There were several boats on the small harbor, but one in particular caught his eye. On it stood a woman.
The Blond-haired, deeply tanned beauty was clothed in a red top and a skirt of brightly printed material wrapped around her waist and trailing unevenly to midcalf. She ran her hands through her hair as he walked past the deck on which she stood, looking down on him.
She reached down suddenly, the red scarf in her left hand matching the red of the top that held her breasts. In an instant, the scarf covered her hair and she was moving away from him, toward the stern of the ship with its single main mast. The ship was a brilliant white, and looked freshly painted.
False-Face kept walking, past more of the seemingly endless cafes to his right, and fishing boats to his left. The Sea of Crete stretched beyond the darkness.
He could feel someone behind him as he turned into the streets again, and he stopped in the first doorway sufficiently dark to offer good cover. He hitched up the hem of his cassock and reached up beneath his pantleg. A large blackhandled knife, tightly curled in his fingers, slid into view.
She called herself Blaze Fields these days, but when he had first known her in Germany it had been Blaze Fahey. Like himself, she was a Nazi. But he trusted no one; it was implicit in his every thought. And so he waited in the sticky, hot darkness, holding his breath as she walked past.
"Blaze," he whispered hoarsely.
She turned abruptly on her right heel. She wore red sandals that were laced around her calves with red leather thongs.
"It is you!" she exclaimed toward the darkness.
"Come here," he called.
She stepped into the doorway. He smelled her perfume.
"False-Face ... all of this," and she gestured to his outfit. "I feared that you ..."
It was worth the risk. He drew her toward him, still holding the knife, his mouth crushing down against hers. He felt the moisture of her lips, smelled her breath. The taste of her could be addictive, he remembered. Her body pushed against him. He could feel the firmness of her breasts through the thin top and the heat of her loins as her body molded to his.
"F.F.," she sighed.
"Is it the boat that we take?" he asked after a moment.
"Too slow, I think. My car is nearby," she replied.
"Tell me where and I will follow after you at a distance," False-Face instructed her.
"The third intersection up the hill, then walk to your right, F.F.," she said. "The car is an old green Fiat with a taillight missing -- the left or the right one, I don't really remember."
"If there is anyone around, I will walk along the street and you can intercept me when it is safe. Now, quickly, go ahead," he urged her.
Her green eyes stared up into his, and he bent over her and kissed her hard, kissed her fast.
She whispered, "I'll be glad when you take off your disguise. The beard." She laughed. "It tickles me, you know?"
She walked away, and False-Face watched as she navigated the cobbled street in her ridiculous sandals with their spike-thin high heels.
He palmed the knife up his sleeve rather than sheath it on his leg under the cassock.
He waited for several minutes, until she was well ahead of him. Then he stepped out of the doorway. A young woman was staring at him. His Greek excellent, his accent perfect, he began, "Are you alone?"
"Yes," she answered, nodding.
He looked up and down the street. She was indeed alone.
"Come here," he said with a smile, gesturing toward the doorway.
She looked at him, her eyes wide in the moonlight. She nodded as she stepped past him. Looking puzzled, she asked, "Are you all right?" He nodded.
"Everything is okay?" she insisted.
"Yes, everything is all right," he said and rammed the spear-pointed blade of his knife into her throat, ripping down to severe the carotid artery.
He let the body slump away from him against the doorway wall, as her heart still pumped and the wounds sprayed blood.
False-Face turned out of the doorway, the knife blade wiped clean across the dead woman's white blouse. He walked up the hill, following Blaze Fields.
***
There had been a drive of more than an hour along a barren and winding road paralleling the coastline, and the descent to the water itself had been perilous in darkness. Blaze had removed her sandals and gone barefoot.
He hitched up the hem of the cassock as he waded barefoot too and his pantlegs rolled up, into the surf toward a darkly colored two-seater rowboat. The blackhaired man who sat in the rear by the oarlocks fought the waves. False-Face assumed he was the pilot of the plane that waited a hundred yards beyond the surf.
False-Face looked at the frail craft. "This will carry us?" he asked Blaze.
"Yes, F.F.," came her reply.
He settled into the front seat, facing Blaze and the man he presumed to be the pilot.
"Herr False-Face." The man nodded as he extended his right hand. False-Face took it briefly. "I am honored, sir, just to meet you," continued the man. "I am Yannis Lemoronos, and I am at your service, sir."
"What kind of boat is this?" demanded False-Face.
"The Americans make it," Lemoronos reported. "They call it a Porta-Bote. When we reach the seaplane, I will unlock the oars, remove the seats and the boat folds to the size of a large surfboard. There is provision to secure it beneath the fuselage of my aircraft, Herr False-Face. It is a very useful boat for a pilot like me." He smiled.
False-Face clamped his hands to the gunwales. He hated boats of any kind, and one that folded made him all the more nervous.
The flight took less than a half hour, the time to fold out the Porta-Bote and refit the seats less than two minutes, Blaze helping Yannis. False-Face was again at the prow as the boat was rowed to the shore of an island, small enough to be rarely visited, rarely noticed on maps of the fringe area of the Cyclades.
He stepped firmly from the rowboat and into the surf, and from the black rocks beyond the narrow white beach, men appeared.
False-Face walked toward them, noting they were armed with machine guns and rifles.
He stopped, just beyond the furtherest lapping of the surf, feeling Blaze beside him.
He addressed the men who stood staring at him, their weapons held diagonally across their chests. "I am False-Face. Soon, I will be in the halls of power, and only I shall wield the power. The mighty ones of all nations will yield to me because of this. And I shall lead the world into a new era of glory, the glory that was robbed from us during the atrocity of 1944. But I shall counter atrocity with atrocity. Of the ninety-nine remaining canisters of VX nerve gas, seventy-four are still within the continental United States and under the direction of The Boomer, a master explosives expert. Some of those will be transported to strategic locations in Mexico and Canada, as well. Of the twenty-five canisters in Europe, twenty-four will be planted throughout the NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. The twenty-fifth I myself shall see to. It will be an object lesson that the world shall never forget. The same effect I had orignally planned for Gateway City, but this time even more glorious, more spectacular. And I shall see to it personally. Blaze will guide you in your individual and collective tasks. Under my direction, individual task outlines will soon be prepared. These you will memorize and then destroy in my presence."
He reached out, holding Blaze's right hand in his left, then raised their hands high.
False-Face watched as the men of the night bowed their heads. He could hear nothing but the lapping of the surf at his feet.
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.
***
AUTHOR'S NOTES TO CHAPTER 3: Before beginning the third chapter, I'd like to point out a few things to my Elseworld's tale. First, Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred initially had no last name when he was first introduced. He was given the surname "Beagle" in Detective Comics #96 in February 1945. Although the name of his Earth- One counterpart was later said to be Pennyworth, the Earth-Two Alfred (the one in this story), as established in Superman Family #211 in October 1981, was Alfred Beagle. So, I decided to stick with the Beagle name in my universe story.
Next, I am very aware that in the accepted DC Earth-Two universe, Bruce Wayne went on to marry Selina Kyle (Catwoman) and they eventually had a child named Helena, who became the Huntress.
While I don't dismiss this continuity outright, I wanted, in my writings, to explore a relationship between Bruce Wayne and Kathy Kane. Selina Kyle will play a very important part in this story and in Bruce Wayne's life. Stay tuned.
***
Chapter 3
The Gotham City International Airport was crowded, but Bruce Wayne, as he moved away from customs with his suitcase and attache case in his hands, wasn't worried that he'd miss his driver. A moment later he saw him, standing dignified among the tourists and business travelers.
Bruce knew that Alfred Beagle saw him. But Alfred remained motionless. He was, as usual, imppecably dressed in a black suit.
Bruce Wayne threaded his way through the crowd and stopped three feet in front of Alfred. The butler/chauffer greeted him with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Master Bruce."
"I might well say the same, Alfred."
"Mrs Wayne has sent me to collect you, sir." The voice was very British sounding.
Alfred reached out with his left hand and took the suitcase from his long- time employer, and Bruce released it to him.
"I have the car waiting for us, sir. I suggest we get on." Alfred turned and started through the crowd, as if oblivious to it, cutting a wedge through the traffic. Bruce followed closely in the butler's wake.
"I hope everything has been alright since I've been out of town," Bruce asked once they got into the Rolls Royce.
"Most assuredly, sir," Alfred answered as he pressed the power-window button and Bruce's back-seat window on the passenger side went down three inches.
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he turned a reproving glance on the back of Alfred's head. But he said nothing and looked away.
Bruce Wayne studied where Alfred was heading with the automobile for a moment.
"How is she?" Bruce asked after a while.
There was no need to say her name. Both men knew who they were talking about. Kathy Kane Wayne, a slinky, sexy, female crimefighter who had smuggled her way into Bruce Wayne's life as Batwoman. It seemed to Bruce that with his duties as both a millionaire industralist and as Batman, they were apart more often than they were together. But when they were together, they were never very far apart.
It was a long moment before Alfred spoke. "Mrs Wayne is well, Master Bruce," he finally said. "If anything, her beauty has increased since you last saw her."
Bruce looked back at Alfred. He smiled as he watched his confidant thread the Rolls Royce through a knot of traffic and into the clear again.
"Anything happen in Gotham while I was gone?" Bruce asked.
"While reading some police reports that came in through your usual sources," replied Alfred calmly, "I noticed that someone had attempted to kill Catwoman."
"Kill Selina?" Bruce asked surprised. "Why would anyone want to do that?"
Alfred exhaled long and hard. "From what I understand, there have been two attempts on her life recently," he said. "One can surmise that the first was merely a hazard of her trade. A disgruntled low bidder apparently sent a talentless assassin to compensate Catwoman for not selling him a gem he wished to acquire. The second, however, is uncertain, but appears to had come from a European nation. The first man reportedly was killed falling from the roof of a building. The second man confronted Catwoman and was dispatched rather quickly with two broken legs."
Bruce stared out the window and listened to the slipstream whistle behind them.
Finally he asked, "I wonder why she doesn't get out of the jewel theft trade? She's probably made enough money to live like a princess for the rest of her life."
"Catwoman," Alfred began in his sometimes sarcastic voice to Bruce, and said, "has not confided this reason to me, and it is, of course, not my position to inquire of her."
It was the end of the conversation, like a bell dinging, Bruce thought. His mind, for some reason, drifted to the events in London a week ago. He had read a JSA report from Wildcat about what had happened. Starman had mended well, but the doctors had warned him to take it easy for a while. Sir Edward Hall, a top flight policeman that Bruce Wayne knew through his connections with Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, was on crutches, but he too would recover. Dr Charles McNider's pride hurt more than any of his wounds, and he went around blaming himself for the whole debacle until Bruce called him and told him that False-Face could fool anyone with his disguises -- including Batman.
Then he thought of False-Face and his lips tightened. False-Face was a scum, a megalomaniac bent on one course. He would either crush the innocent people of the world under his jackbooted heel, or he would tear them apart in the process. But not if Batman and the Justice Society of America had anything to say about it.
***
Kathy Wayne stood motionless in front of her dressing-room mirror. Her rich black hair tumbled down to her bare shoulders. She admired her body. She was proud of it, proud of the things it could do.
She picked up a pair of gray linen slacks from the chair beside the mirror and began to slip them on. Her legs were long and well-shaped, the thighs firm and the skin taut over her sinewy muscles. Her calves tapered down to slim ankles.
She pulled the waistband over her narrow hips, the pants hugging her behind and snuggling into her crotch. Her stomach was smooth and firm beneath her hands as she buttoned the pants. She worked hard at staying in peak condition as Batwoman.
Next came a pink wool sweater with a V-neck and dolman sleeves. For some reason, she always felt freer and easier in its bulky, loose-fitting form. As she raised her arms to pull it on, she caught the profile of her breasts in the mirror. They were full and firm, the pure white skin extending to large pink nipples.
She slipped the sweater over her head and felt the fine wool brush tantalizingly against her skin. She tossed her head and shook her shiny hair free of the neckline.
Around her long slender neck, she wore a finely sculpted platninum necklace. Just a hint of makeup highlighted her features. Her high cheekbones, the ones that could have made her a million-dollar-a-year fashion model, had she not only been rich in her own right before she even met Bruce Wayne, showed just a slight blush of pink. Her lips were full and red and inviting. Her light-blue eyes were bright but distant, as if she were suddenly focusing on the next few hours.
Her tongue played on her lips.
"Bruce," she whispered to her own reflection. A sparkle flashed in her eyes when she said his name.
***
They had driven along the side of the Gotham River on a road that extended toward Wayne Manor, in the northern suburbs of Gotham City. Once out of heavier traffic, Alfred maintained the Rolls Royce at just below fifty miles per hour. The watch on Bruce's left wrist indicated that nearly half an hour had elapsed.
The road had taken them through a mixture of wooded areas and stately homes of the rich.
He didn't look at Alfred as he asked him, "How much longer, do you suppose?"
"Another five minutes, Master Bruce," replied Alfred.
Alfred's British accent seemed a bit stronger now. "It is not my position, of course, but as regards to Catwoman ..." Alfred shifted his gaze from the road to the rearview mirror and Bruce Wayne as he spoke, Bruce watching him.
"Do I intend to look into the attempts on her life?" Bruce asked.
"Perhaps not in those exact words, but the spirit is there, yes," Alfred said.
"It depends on whether or not she cooperates or wishes the help of Batman, doesn't it?" Bruce knew it was a little silly, but he didn't want to give Alfred the satisfaction of a straight answer. He knew the past history between The Batman and Catwoman.
A huge mansion came into view. It had been nearly a week since he had seen Kathy.
He stepped out of the Rolls Royce onto the driveway and took it all in, the security fences, the landscaping designed for privacy. He had just turned his attention to the front of the house itself when one of a pair of dark double doors swung open. A figure stood in the doorway, stealing the brillance away from the setting sun.
Kathy Wayne.
Bruce started to walk toward her. She stood just inside the doorway for an instant longer, then started through, across the shallow granite of the wide top step.
He stopped, still several yards from the steps, staring at this fascinatingly beautiful creature who stood at the base of the steps, her hands hugging her shoulders with her arms crossed over her chest.
Bruce realized he had been holding his breath. As he exhaled, he saw steam rise from his lips.
"Kathy," he called out.
"Bruce," she responded, "come put your arms around me before I take a chill. Please."
Bruce walked up to her.
Her hair shone, rich, dark and full. Her eyes as blue as the winter sky, held him like a vise.
He drew her close to him. She was doing it, what she always could do.
Bruce kissed her hard, tasting her mouth, wanting to devour her.
Kathy responded.
***
One of the two Americans, the one called Jack Knight, had a concussion and had been in a hospital for observation, False-Face had learned through his sources in London's right-wing underground. False-Face wished he had killed him. The other one, the ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Ted Grant, had flown back to New York City, to his gym in the "Big Apple." His dossier on Grant revealed that he was a friend of Dr Charles McNider. Were the two of them -- and who else -- working together to find him? Was there any connection between them and those mystery men who foiled his plan in Gateway City a few months ago? False-Face wasn't sure.
Dr Charles McNider was a world renown crime writer and had very high- ranking sources in law enforcement circles throughout the world. Was he employing Ted Grant to be his bodyguard or something? That was logical. And what of this Ted Knight? False-Face's sources believed Knight to be a millionaire who liked to dabble in astronomy.
His back turned against a seventh-century fresco of the Virgin and John beneath the cross, False-Face rested his bearded chin in his left hand as he "meditated" in the small chamber at the side of the Greek Orthodox church.
He studied the wristwatch he had pinned under the flowing black cossack he wore. It was time to go.
He stood slowly to befit his years, adjusting the set of his flat crowned miter.
He hunched forward slightly as he walked with the support of a walking stick. He nodded and raised his right hand in blessing as he passed out of the door amid a throng of women. They were professional mourners. One day he would provide the stupid women with something they could really mourn over.
False-Face moved ahead into the narrow cobbled street, turned to his right and walked down the slight hill.
He thread his way along the maze of noisy streets for ten minutes and soon he could see the night blackness of the Sea of Crete stretched below him like a sinister abyss. The sleazy cafes acted as a buffer between the blackness of the water and the dingy grayness of the nighttime Rethimnone itself.
False-Face skirted the open front of the nearest of the cafes, returning the smiles and good wishes of the revelers as they noticed him, the old priest. The clinking of glasses and the high-pitched forced laughter of young girls who sat with dark-faced, mustachioed young men fought for precedence over the blaring Western rock music. He thought that the song he was hearing was from some new English group called The Beatles or something.
There were several boats on the small harbor, but one in particular caught his eye. On it stood a woman.
The Blond-haired, deeply tanned beauty was clothed in a red top and a skirt of brightly printed material wrapped around her waist and trailing unevenly to midcalf. She ran her hands through her hair as he walked past the deck on which she stood, looking down on him.
She reached down suddenly, the red scarf in her left hand matching the red of the top that held her breasts. In an instant, the scarf covered her hair and she was moving away from him, toward the stern of the ship with its single main mast. The ship was a brilliant white, and looked freshly painted.
False-Face kept walking, past more of the seemingly endless cafes to his right, and fishing boats to his left. The Sea of Crete stretched beyond the darkness.
He could feel someone behind him as he turned into the streets again, and he stopped in the first doorway sufficiently dark to offer good cover. He hitched up the hem of his cassock and reached up beneath his pantleg. A large blackhandled knife, tightly curled in his fingers, slid into view.
She called herself Blaze Fields these days, but when he had first known her in Germany it had been Blaze Fahey. Like himself, she was a Nazi. But he trusted no one; it was implicit in his every thought. And so he waited in the sticky, hot darkness, holding his breath as she walked past.
"Blaze," he whispered hoarsely.
She turned abruptly on her right heel. She wore red sandals that were laced around her calves with red leather thongs.
"It is you!" she exclaimed toward the darkness.
"Come here," he called.
She stepped into the doorway. He smelled her perfume.
"False-Face ... all of this," and she gestured to his outfit. "I feared that you ..."
It was worth the risk. He drew her toward him, still holding the knife, his mouth crushing down against hers. He felt the moisture of her lips, smelled her breath. The taste of her could be addictive, he remembered. Her body pushed against him. He could feel the firmness of her breasts through the thin top and the heat of her loins as her body molded to his.
"F.F.," she sighed.
"Is it the boat that we take?" he asked after a moment.
"Too slow, I think. My car is nearby," she replied.
"Tell me where and I will follow after you at a distance," False-Face instructed her.
"The third intersection up the hill, then walk to your right, F.F.," she said. "The car is an old green Fiat with a taillight missing -- the left or the right one, I don't really remember."
"If there is anyone around, I will walk along the street and you can intercept me when it is safe. Now, quickly, go ahead," he urged her.
Her green eyes stared up into his, and he bent over her and kissed her hard, kissed her fast.
She whispered, "I'll be glad when you take off your disguise. The beard." She laughed. "It tickles me, you know?"
She walked away, and False-Face watched as she navigated the cobbled street in her ridiculous sandals with their spike-thin high heels.
He palmed the knife up his sleeve rather than sheath it on his leg under the cassock.
He waited for several minutes, until she was well ahead of him. Then he stepped out of the doorway. A young woman was staring at him. His Greek excellent, his accent perfect, he began, "Are you alone?"
"Yes," she answered, nodding.
He looked up and down the street. She was indeed alone.
"Come here," he said with a smile, gesturing toward the doorway.
She looked at him, her eyes wide in the moonlight. She nodded as she stepped past him. Looking puzzled, she asked, "Are you all right?" He nodded.
"Everything is okay?" she insisted.
"Yes, everything is all right," he said and rammed the spear-pointed blade of his knife into her throat, ripping down to severe the carotid artery.
He let the body slump away from him against the doorway wall, as her heart still pumped and the wounds sprayed blood.
False-Face turned out of the doorway, the knife blade wiped clean across the dead woman's white blouse. He walked up the hill, following Blaze Fields.
***
There had been a drive of more than an hour along a barren and winding road paralleling the coastline, and the descent to the water itself had been perilous in darkness. Blaze had removed her sandals and gone barefoot.
He hitched up the hem of the cassock as he waded barefoot too and his pantlegs rolled up, into the surf toward a darkly colored two-seater rowboat. The blackhaired man who sat in the rear by the oarlocks fought the waves. False-Face assumed he was the pilot of the plane that waited a hundred yards beyond the surf.
False-Face looked at the frail craft. "This will carry us?" he asked Blaze.
"Yes, F.F.," came her reply.
He settled into the front seat, facing Blaze and the man he presumed to be the pilot.
"Herr False-Face." The man nodded as he extended his right hand. False-Face took it briefly. "I am honored, sir, just to meet you," continued the man. "I am Yannis Lemoronos, and I am at your service, sir."
"What kind of boat is this?" demanded False-Face.
"The Americans make it," Lemoronos reported. "They call it a Porta-Bote. When we reach the seaplane, I will unlock the oars, remove the seats and the boat folds to the size of a large surfboard. There is provision to secure it beneath the fuselage of my aircraft, Herr False-Face. It is a very useful boat for a pilot like me." He smiled.
False-Face clamped his hands to the gunwales. He hated boats of any kind, and one that folded made him all the more nervous.
The flight took less than a half hour, the time to fold out the Porta-Bote and refit the seats less than two minutes, Blaze helping Yannis. False-Face was again at the prow as the boat was rowed to the shore of an island, small enough to be rarely visited, rarely noticed on maps of the fringe area of the Cyclades.
He stepped firmly from the rowboat and into the surf, and from the black rocks beyond the narrow white beach, men appeared.
False-Face walked toward them, noting they were armed with machine guns and rifles.
He stopped, just beyond the furtherest lapping of the surf, feeling Blaze beside him.
He addressed the men who stood staring at him, their weapons held diagonally across their chests. "I am False-Face. Soon, I will be in the halls of power, and only I shall wield the power. The mighty ones of all nations will yield to me because of this. And I shall lead the world into a new era of glory, the glory that was robbed from us during the atrocity of 1944. But I shall counter atrocity with atrocity. Of the ninety-nine remaining canisters of VX nerve gas, seventy-four are still within the continental United States and under the direction of The Boomer, a master explosives expert. Some of those will be transported to strategic locations in Mexico and Canada, as well. Of the twenty-five canisters in Europe, twenty-four will be planted throughout the NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. The twenty-fifth I myself shall see to. It will be an object lesson that the world shall never forget. The same effect I had orignally planned for Gateway City, but this time even more glorious, more spectacular. And I shall see to it personally. Blaze will guide you in your individual and collective tasks. Under my direction, individual task outlines will soon be prepared. These you will memorize and then destroy in my presence."
He reached out, holding Blaze's right hand in his left, then raised their hands high.
False-Face watched as the men of the night bowed their heads. He could hear nothing but the lapping of the surf at his feet.
To be continued ...