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 6
The Sandman dug in with the inside edge of his downhill ski and brought himself to a stop. The blue van was still roughly parallel to him but more than a mile away on the road beneath him. He started to move again, but caught himself. On one of the more remote slopes of the Kandahar he saw movement, like a man in motion down the slope. Dangling his poles from his wrists, he snatched up the binoculars, smudging condensation from the lenses and swung them to the Kandahar. It was one of the finest slopes in the world. He focused on the man. The yellow and black outfit was unmistakeable.
"Hourman," he said to himself. Sandman watched his colleague for a moment, studying his technique. There was no technique. Hourman looked like he was barely controlling his descent down the mountain. Hourman's body flexed in the turns, as he tried to control his speed. Sandman guessed that he had never learned how to ski.
It was clear what Hourman was doing -- making up for lost time by taking the faster, more dangerous slope in an effort to intersect the road and get ahead of the fleeing van. It was a good strategy, and Hourman was roughly parallel to him now.
"Very good, my friend," Sandman remarked as he watched through the binoculars. "But for your sake, I hope you know what you're doing or you'll kill yourself." The Sandman let the binoculars fall to his side and grabbed at the handles of his poles again, digging in, bending his body low as he attacked the slope.
He would need greater speed now in order to intercept the blue van. His body bent forward over the tips of his skis and he threw himself into the downhill, fast and dangerous.
***
Hourman used body English to slow himself as he moved into the turn, skidding a little on the edge of his ski, his poles digging in.
Truth be told -- he hadn't a clue of what he was doing. But it seemed like a wild ride.
On the road a thousand yards beneath him, he could see the dark form of the speeding van. The only way to beat the Arab to the point of the road beneath this side trail of Kandahar, he thought, would be to run it all out. And that's what he was doing. And somewhere ahead of him -- somewhere, though he couldn't see them -- were six of the heavily armed ski troops.
If everyone from Catwoman and the JSA to the CIA was coming to Abdul al- Kafir for information on False-Face, Hourman surmised the ski troops were representing False-Face, sent to eliminate al-Kafir as a possible source of betrayal.
"What the hell," he rasped into the wind, and he knifed his body into the downhill run. At the speed he was building to, a fall could mean a broken back or neck -- likely death, and that would be preferable to the alternates. The Miraclo pill increased his ability to withstand pain, but it didn't make him invulnerable.
The frigid air around him was numbing now, carrying with it the buffeting of the wind. His body danced on his skis for balance, his knees flexed, the poles tucked under his armpits -- just like he saw real skiers do on television. A sudden shift in balance would be disaster now, he knew.
Hourman could no longer feel the pain of the wind and cold against his face. With his hips over his skis, he swung his shoulders fast, working his ankles and veering right around a mogul, flexing back, bending into the slope. The blue van was barely visible through the blizzard of ice and snow whipped up by the wind.
His lips drawn back, Hourman felt his teeth bared. He sucked his breath against the cold, trying to warm the air in his mouth before taking it into his lungs. The trail split ahead of him. To the left, ran a gentler slope, but Hourman could see now that it curved along the side of the mountain and would take him perhaps a mile out of his way.
To the right, the trail was steeper, sharper. A sign posted in German warned him off his chosen path. Ten feet beyond it another sign, this one in bold orange letters, simply read "Gefahr." It was German for danger.
"No kidding," the Man of the Hour snarled into the wind, taking the path to his right. Another sign read Halt! It meant the same in German as it did in English, but it was too late now for Hourman to stop. And then he saw why the signs had been posted. A quarter mile ahead, the trail swept up suddenly and beyond it was nothing but the blue sky.
He worked his body English, turning himself, nearly losing it. Regaining his balance, he slowed and stopped, amazed that he could actually do that.
Ahead, beyond the drop-off, he could see airspace, and perhaps a hundred feet beyond it, virgin snow. There was no telling if the lip of the trail was solid or merely formed from blowing and drifting snow.
If it was solid, considering the distance down, he could try for a jump and hope to make it across.
"If," he murmured.
He could no longer see the road, and backtracking to where the two trails had diverged would take forever.
He looked behind him, then ahead.
It was reckless. It was stupid. But if al-Kafir died before he gave up whatever it was he knew about False-Face, then perhaps the VX nerve gas canisters would be lost. Perhaps False-Face was even now preparing to release the contents of one, to kill millions of innocent people, he thought.
He shrugged and arched his eyebrows beneath his cowl. "Oh, well ..." If the lip of the trail was only of snow, or if the gap between one side of the small saddle back and the other was too wide he hoped he would die quickly and not have to endure the agony of freezing to death and every bone in his body broken.
He dug in his poles and kicked off trying to focus his thoughts on making the jump. He had about four hundred yards to work up speed. He tried to focus on something ... How many bones were in the human body anyway? Two hundred six? Was that right?
The lip of the trail was coming, and Hourman's direction suddenly changed. The trail was like a ramp now and his body was low as he rocketed upward, steeper and steeper.
He could feel the edge of the lip giving way, but he was already launched into the air, his shoulders hunched, his head down, his poles up, his knees flexed for the impact. He was falling, but still traveling forward. Below him were snow-splotched rocks. He focused his eyes ahead. The edge of the far side of the saddle was farther away than he had thought. He tucked up, then angled his body forward over the tips of his skis, trying to push the last millimeter of distance from the jump.
His rate of descent was too fast. He thought he would fall below the edge of the far side of the saddle before he had traveled far enough outward. He arched his back, leaning at a sharp angle, almost flat across his skis now.
He felt the impact, and his body vibrated with it. His legs wavering dangerously, his balance shifting radically.
Finally, he got his balance and redistributed his weight. He crouched his body into a tuck. He was moving at an incredible rate of speed.
His lungs suddenly felt cold with the intake of air.
But he kept going.
The trail curved as it gently banked downhill. From his uphill position, Hourman could see the midnight-blue van of al-Kafir again. The van had more than a mile to travel before it reached the segment of road beneath the trail.
The Man of the Hour leaned over his skis, tucked up his poles, and turned into the curve. Now, he was heading straight down. One mistake and he'd be dead. In the distance, he could see a single-clad shape racing down the opposite slope.
It wasn't one of the ski troopers, unless whoever it was had thrown away his snow smock and replaced it with a purple cape.
It looked as if he was wearing fedora hat on his head, too.
"Somebody is throwing one hell of a party," he said to himself.
The trail zigzagged left, a massive mogul at its approximate center. Hourman leaned to the trail's right embankment, spiked his poles into the snow, and launched himself over the mogul.
The figure on the opposite slope was in sharper definition. From the general build and the way the person handled the skis, he was putting every once of energy into it.
Hourman felt his lips curl in a smile against the wind. He knew who it was.
The Man of the Hour skied the rim of the embankment again and bounced over another mogul. He came down hard and fast and maneuvered his way into balance again. The trail was almost at an end, the road coming up fast.
To his right, he saw the van and he could almost make out the figure behind the windshield.
There was apparently a third trail, one he hadn't seen, for two hundred yards behind the blue van, he could see the half-dozen ski troopers in hot pursuit.
The van fishtailed as it picked up speed. Assault rifle and subgun fire cracked out behind the van, coming from the advancing ski troopers. Across the road, coming down the far slope, he could see the mysterious skier. Both of his poles had been transferred to his left hand, and in the right the shape of a funny-looking gun jutted forth.
With the speed at which he traveled, Hourman judged that he and Sandman -- he knew it was Sandman -- would intersect the road at approximately the same instant, and at approximately the same spot, from opposite sides. They would be between the van and the six ski troopers.
Somehow, the prospect of all this didn't make the Man of the Hour feel very comfortable.
Hourman continued to coast forward.
The trail started upward, toward the embankment of snow that flanked the road.
He looked up to see Sandman airborne, sailing over the far embankment.
Hourman dug in his poles, twisting his body, digging his poles into the snow and ice on the road.
Beside him, less than ten feet away, was Sandman. He held his wirepoon gun in his right hand. He certainly couldn't look at Wesley's face because of the gas mask that covered it.
Gunfire began to stutter from behind them.
He glanced toward Sandman and gave him a slight nod with a smile.
Sandman was looking at him.
Their eyes met through the goggles of the gas mask.
Hourman shouted to his JSA teammate, "Nice to see you, Sandman!"
"Same, here!" came back the somewhat muffled shout.
Taking his poles in both hands, Hourman dug in and executed a 180-degree turn. He came down hard and pushed himself backward down the road after the receding van. It would be seconds before he lost momentum or hit a rut.
Assault-rifle continued from the ski troopers.
Hourman stabbed his poles into the ice-slicked snow of the road, twisting, losing his balance, starting to fall. Suddenly, Sandman was beside him, supporting him for an instant. The Man of the Hour regained his balance, nodded to Sandman and shouted over the roar of gunfire from behind and the laboring engine noises of the blue van fifty yards ahead, "I'm all right!"
Sandman nodded, twisted on his skis and fired his wirepoon at the van. A shout informed Hourman, "Missed!"
As Sandman reset his wirepoon for another shot, Hourman turned away, digging his poles into the snow.
"Together -- together we can get them!" Sandman shouted.
Hourman glanced to the man and nodded as he zigzagged on his skis to avoid the assault-rifle fire from the ski troopers behind. Gunfire tracked along the road surface and cutting waves of ice chips pelted up at him.
"Ready?" Sandman shouted.
"For what?" asked Hourman.
"When my wirepoon strikes the van, it will reel us into it!"
Hourman raised his eyebrows and stared at Sandman. "And what is it that you want me to do?"
"Just grab me and hang on!"
Hourman nodded. "Okay!"
Sandman shouted, "My count of three. One, two ..." Hourman got ready to grab hold of his colleague. "Three!"
Hourman twisted right and grabbed the Sandman's suitcoat just behind the left shoulder. He heard the coughing sound of the wirepoon as the stainless- steel bolt with barbs at the end hit the van and pulled the attached wire that was spooling out of the gun that Sandman was holding.
The Man of the Hour twisted forward, struggling to keep his balance.
"We did it!" Sandman shouted as he started to grab the wire and pulled himself and Hourman toward the van.
"Here!" Sandman yelled. "Grab the wire! With your increased strength, it'll be easier for you to pull us to the van!"
Reaching out with his left hand, while still holding Sandman with his right, Hourman grabbed hold of the thin wire. Sandman switched positions and grabbed hold of the back of Hourman's tunic.
Hourman started to pull them closer and closer to the speeding van that was now fishtailing all over the road.
Suddenly, Sandman's ski hit a rut and he felt his balance going. He was falling, cursing his luck as he had to let go of Hourman who continued to rocket ahead.
Sandman sprawled onto the road surface. His bindings sprung open, and his left ski slithered down the road ahead of him.
The Sandman spread-eagled his arms and legs to slow his spinning skid across the ice-slicked snow. He raised his head to see Hourman still pulling himself toward the van. But then suddenly, Hourman was airborne, going over an embankment of snow and ice. Sandman saw his teammate's left ski twist away and split in half. Hourman was airborne for one instant, then gone from sight with a shout of rage.
But now there was another problem and that came in the form of the six armed ski troopers coming fast toward The Sandman. The six, thinking that they were opposing just one ordinary man, formed a close-knit wedge as they approached the masked vigilante from New York City.
From the holster underneath his suit jacket, The Sandman pulled out his new gas gun. He adjusted the nozzle at the end of the barrel. Looking back up, he saw that he only had seconds before the ski troopers were upon him. Aiming toward the left of the wedge, Sandman pulled the trigger and an orange cloud of gas spewed out of the gun.
Keeping his finger pressed on the trigger, The Sandman moved his arm from left to right, making sure that none of the six could possibly avoid skiing right into the cloud of knockout gas.
In a matter of seconds, that was exactly what happened. The six ski troopers went through the orange cloud and were instantly knocked unconscious, spilling like ten pins in a bowling alley on the icy road.
"That takes care of that problem," The Sandman remarked to himself.
Sandman reholstered his gas gun. As he retrieved his ski, his only thought was to catch the blue van and al-Kafir. And the only way to intercept the van was to try to quickly look for the best spot to shoot over the embankment. He saw it, and dug in his poles.
As Sandman shot up the embankment that had tripped up Hourman, he could hear his colleague shouting to him, "I'll catch up as best I can!"
Ahead there was another embankment as the road made a hairpin curve. Sandman sideslipped a mogul, gaining speed. The wind had chiseled the top of the embankment flat and Sandman launched himself toward it.
He was roughly parallel to the van now and could see the burly Arab behind the wheel. Al-Kafir, he thought, must still be in the back.
Al-Kafir's driver had seen him and raised a pistol to fire. Sandman realized he was in danger. As the Arab swung his gun out the driver's-side window, Sandman freed his wrist from the strap and held his right pole at the balance point. The Sandman hurtled it with all his might toward the driver. The pole whistled through the open window and burrowed into the driver's head slightly forward and above his left ear. The big Arab slumped over the wheel. The van went into a sudden zigzag, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir screaming for help from the back.
The Sandman felt his lips twist into a grin. The van hammered repeatedly against the embankment, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir moaning as he bounced around the inside.
Suddenly, the van caught a rut and angled sharply, away from the embankment toward the far side of the road. Sandman could see the ground drop off to a precipice ahead. The van would go over the side, and al-Kafir would be killed. "Jump for it!" Sandman shouted.
Al-Kafir's whining in the cold air made him somehow nauseated. "I can't. I'm afraid!"
Sandman could see the angle of the van and the edge of the road. In less than a minute, perhaps much less, the van would be over the side.
The Sandman hurled himself toward the van, praying the impact would break his bindings before he broke his ankles or his legs.
He slammed down hard on the roof of the careering vehicle, his skis gone. He could feel his body starting to roll off the roof of the runaway van.
Summoning all of his force, he stabbed the remaining ski pole downward into the roof of the van.
His right hand reached for the pole and grabbed at it, as his left hand slid across the roof line and fingers locked over the opening for the driver's window.
The pole snapped with a crack, and Sandman's body lurched to the right. As he started to slide from the roof, his right hand made a desperate grab for the window opening on the passenger side.
He was falling. His hands clutched at the opening, and his feet dragged in the snow. Pain shot up his back but if he let go he knew al-Kafir would die and take whatever information he had on False-Face to the grave with him.
The Sandman felt the muscles in his arms extend. His neck was tight with pain. With his jaw set, he tugged himself forward, his left hand reaching for the door handle.
He had it, and the door swung open, Sandman's body swinging with it. His feet ripped a burrow in the snow. He swung his right foot up and wedged it against the interior of the door. The door slapped closed, pressing his body between door and doorframe. His right hand stabbed out for the steering wheel, which was jammed beneath the deadweight of the driver.
The lip of the road was less than fifty yards away. The Sandman had to gamble. He threw his body forward and across the seat. If he fell now, he would go under the wheels.
He could hear al-Kafir screaming from the back of the van. Another sound made his blood run cold. A third Doberman was still in the van, and the door of his cage must have rattled loose from all the shaking.
Sandman pulled the body of the dead driver aside, and twisted in behind the wheel. In the rearview mirror, he could see past the hinged Plexiglas sheet that seperated the driver's compartment from the rear of the van. A huge dark shape lunged at al-Kafir.
The van went into a slide, and The Sandman fought the wheel into the skid.
He could see over the edge of the road -- perhaps six feet and then nothing.
Inside his gloves, his hands sweated.
The Doberman continued his ferocious assault on al-Kafir and Sandman winced at the thought of the damage such an animal could inflict.
He started pumping the brake, first pressure, then no pressure, again and again.
As the snarls of the Doberman merged with al-Kafir's desperate cries for help, The Sandman increased the brake pressure. Gradually, the van slowed. The rear end danced to the right, coming within feet of the soft precipice.
Finally, it came to a stop.
Sandman heard a throttled cry and looked back into the cargo bay of the van. The Doberman's huge mouth seemed to cover al-Kafir's entire face, tearing at his throat. Al-Kafir's blood flowed freely, and as The Sandman watched, the fat Arab's hands dropped from the dog's neck. He saw a glint of steel as al-Kafir came up with a sleek, thin dagger in a last desperate attempt to save his life. The blade swept upward and plunged into the Doberman's stomach.
The big black dog let out a piercing yelp and whipped its head to the side, tearing away half of al-Kafir's throat with its sudden movement. The big animal's back legs jerked in spasms, slipping in the pool of blood that gushed from al-Kafir's neck. The Arab's chubby hand still gripped the jeweled handle of the dagger as the dog collapsed on him.
The Sandman pushed open the Plexiglas divider and stared into the cargo area. The hot blood steamed as cold air swept through the van. Al-Kafir was propped against the inside of the van, his eyes bulging grotesquely from his face. Sandman could see the exposed vertebrae of his neck where the Doberman had ripped his way through muscle and tendon. The dog's blood- covered snout lay across al-Kafir's chest.
Nothing moved.
Finally, The Sandman summoned up the strength to crawl into the back of the van.
A briefcase lay on the floor, the lock secured. Sandman took a small pry bar from under jacket and pried at the lockplate. It resisted.
He shrugged, using the pry bar instead to punch through and rip the leather.
Inside was American money -- a lot of it, in fifties and hundreds. He decided he'd determine its fate later.
Under the money was an address book.
He opened it and saw what appeared to be phone numbers. But there were no names attached. The Sandman figured that if they were important enough to be in code, they were important enough to read.
He looked at the lifeless al-Kafir, the man who Catwoman had said enjoyed watching young girls being ripped apart by dogs.
He felt that some sort of justice had prevailed.
He didn't try to feel sorry.
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 6
The Sandman dug in with the inside edge of his downhill ski and brought himself to a stop. The blue van was still roughly parallel to him but more than a mile away on the road beneath him. He started to move again, but caught himself. On one of the more remote slopes of the Kandahar he saw movement, like a man in motion down the slope. Dangling his poles from his wrists, he snatched up the binoculars, smudging condensation from the lenses and swung them to the Kandahar. It was one of the finest slopes in the world. He focused on the man. The yellow and black outfit was unmistakeable.
"Hourman," he said to himself. Sandman watched his colleague for a moment, studying his technique. There was no technique. Hourman looked like he was barely controlling his descent down the mountain. Hourman's body flexed in the turns, as he tried to control his speed. Sandman guessed that he had never learned how to ski.
It was clear what Hourman was doing -- making up for lost time by taking the faster, more dangerous slope in an effort to intersect the road and get ahead of the fleeing van. It was a good strategy, and Hourman was roughly parallel to him now.
"Very good, my friend," Sandman remarked as he watched through the binoculars. "But for your sake, I hope you know what you're doing or you'll kill yourself." The Sandman let the binoculars fall to his side and grabbed at the handles of his poles again, digging in, bending his body low as he attacked the slope.
He would need greater speed now in order to intercept the blue van. His body bent forward over the tips of his skis and he threw himself into the downhill, fast and dangerous.
***
Hourman used body English to slow himself as he moved into the turn, skidding a little on the edge of his ski, his poles digging in.
Truth be told -- he hadn't a clue of what he was doing. But it seemed like a wild ride.
On the road a thousand yards beneath him, he could see the dark form of the speeding van. The only way to beat the Arab to the point of the road beneath this side trail of Kandahar, he thought, would be to run it all out. And that's what he was doing. And somewhere ahead of him -- somewhere, though he couldn't see them -- were six of the heavily armed ski troops.
If everyone from Catwoman and the JSA to the CIA was coming to Abdul al- Kafir for information on False-Face, Hourman surmised the ski troops were representing False-Face, sent to eliminate al-Kafir as a possible source of betrayal.
"What the hell," he rasped into the wind, and he knifed his body into the downhill run. At the speed he was building to, a fall could mean a broken back or neck -- likely death, and that would be preferable to the alternates. The Miraclo pill increased his ability to withstand pain, but it didn't make him invulnerable.
The frigid air around him was numbing now, carrying with it the buffeting of the wind. His body danced on his skis for balance, his knees flexed, the poles tucked under his armpits -- just like he saw real skiers do on television. A sudden shift in balance would be disaster now, he knew.
Hourman could no longer feel the pain of the wind and cold against his face. With his hips over his skis, he swung his shoulders fast, working his ankles and veering right around a mogul, flexing back, bending into the slope. The blue van was barely visible through the blizzard of ice and snow whipped up by the wind.
His lips drawn back, Hourman felt his teeth bared. He sucked his breath against the cold, trying to warm the air in his mouth before taking it into his lungs. The trail split ahead of him. To the left, ran a gentler slope, but Hourman could see now that it curved along the side of the mountain and would take him perhaps a mile out of his way.
To the right, the trail was steeper, sharper. A sign posted in German warned him off his chosen path. Ten feet beyond it another sign, this one in bold orange letters, simply read "Gefahr." It was German for danger.
"No kidding," the Man of the Hour snarled into the wind, taking the path to his right. Another sign read Halt! It meant the same in German as it did in English, but it was too late now for Hourman to stop. And then he saw why the signs had been posted. A quarter mile ahead, the trail swept up suddenly and beyond it was nothing but the blue sky.
He worked his body English, turning himself, nearly losing it. Regaining his balance, he slowed and stopped, amazed that he could actually do that.
Ahead, beyond the drop-off, he could see airspace, and perhaps a hundred feet beyond it, virgin snow. There was no telling if the lip of the trail was solid or merely formed from blowing and drifting snow.
If it was solid, considering the distance down, he could try for a jump and hope to make it across.
"If," he murmured.
He could no longer see the road, and backtracking to where the two trails had diverged would take forever.
He looked behind him, then ahead.
It was reckless. It was stupid. But if al-Kafir died before he gave up whatever it was he knew about False-Face, then perhaps the VX nerve gas canisters would be lost. Perhaps False-Face was even now preparing to release the contents of one, to kill millions of innocent people, he thought.
He shrugged and arched his eyebrows beneath his cowl. "Oh, well ..." If the lip of the trail was only of snow, or if the gap between one side of the small saddle back and the other was too wide he hoped he would die quickly and not have to endure the agony of freezing to death and every bone in his body broken.
He dug in his poles and kicked off trying to focus his thoughts on making the jump. He had about four hundred yards to work up speed. He tried to focus on something ... How many bones were in the human body anyway? Two hundred six? Was that right?
The lip of the trail was coming, and Hourman's direction suddenly changed. The trail was like a ramp now and his body was low as he rocketed upward, steeper and steeper.
He could feel the edge of the lip giving way, but he was already launched into the air, his shoulders hunched, his head down, his poles up, his knees flexed for the impact. He was falling, but still traveling forward. Below him were snow-splotched rocks. He focused his eyes ahead. The edge of the far side of the saddle was farther away than he had thought. He tucked up, then angled his body forward over the tips of his skis, trying to push the last millimeter of distance from the jump.
His rate of descent was too fast. He thought he would fall below the edge of the far side of the saddle before he had traveled far enough outward. He arched his back, leaning at a sharp angle, almost flat across his skis now.
He felt the impact, and his body vibrated with it. His legs wavering dangerously, his balance shifting radically.
Finally, he got his balance and redistributed his weight. He crouched his body into a tuck. He was moving at an incredible rate of speed.
His lungs suddenly felt cold with the intake of air.
But he kept going.
The trail curved as it gently banked downhill. From his uphill position, Hourman could see the midnight-blue van of al-Kafir again. The van had more than a mile to travel before it reached the segment of road beneath the trail.
The Man of the Hour leaned over his skis, tucked up his poles, and turned into the curve. Now, he was heading straight down. One mistake and he'd be dead. In the distance, he could see a single-clad shape racing down the opposite slope.
It wasn't one of the ski troopers, unless whoever it was had thrown away his snow smock and replaced it with a purple cape.
It looked as if he was wearing fedora hat on his head, too.
"Somebody is throwing one hell of a party," he said to himself.
The trail zigzagged left, a massive mogul at its approximate center. Hourman leaned to the trail's right embankment, spiked his poles into the snow, and launched himself over the mogul.
The figure on the opposite slope was in sharper definition. From the general build and the way the person handled the skis, he was putting every once of energy into it.
Hourman felt his lips curl in a smile against the wind. He knew who it was.
The Man of the Hour skied the rim of the embankment again and bounced over another mogul. He came down hard and fast and maneuvered his way into balance again. The trail was almost at an end, the road coming up fast.
To his right, he saw the van and he could almost make out the figure behind the windshield.
There was apparently a third trail, one he hadn't seen, for two hundred yards behind the blue van, he could see the half-dozen ski troopers in hot pursuit.
The van fishtailed as it picked up speed. Assault rifle and subgun fire cracked out behind the van, coming from the advancing ski troopers. Across the road, coming down the far slope, he could see the mysterious skier. Both of his poles had been transferred to his left hand, and in the right the shape of a funny-looking gun jutted forth.
With the speed at which he traveled, Hourman judged that he and Sandman -- he knew it was Sandman -- would intersect the road at approximately the same instant, and at approximately the same spot, from opposite sides. They would be between the van and the six ski troopers.
Somehow, the prospect of all this didn't make the Man of the Hour feel very comfortable.
Hourman continued to coast forward.
The trail started upward, toward the embankment of snow that flanked the road.
He looked up to see Sandman airborne, sailing over the far embankment.
Hourman dug in his poles, twisting his body, digging his poles into the snow and ice on the road.
Beside him, less than ten feet away, was Sandman. He held his wirepoon gun in his right hand. He certainly couldn't look at Wesley's face because of the gas mask that covered it.
Gunfire began to stutter from behind them.
He glanced toward Sandman and gave him a slight nod with a smile.
Sandman was looking at him.
Their eyes met through the goggles of the gas mask.
Hourman shouted to his JSA teammate, "Nice to see you, Sandman!"
"Same, here!" came back the somewhat muffled shout.
Taking his poles in both hands, Hourman dug in and executed a 180-degree turn. He came down hard and pushed himself backward down the road after the receding van. It would be seconds before he lost momentum or hit a rut.
Assault-rifle continued from the ski troopers.
Hourman stabbed his poles into the ice-slicked snow of the road, twisting, losing his balance, starting to fall. Suddenly, Sandman was beside him, supporting him for an instant. The Man of the Hour regained his balance, nodded to Sandman and shouted over the roar of gunfire from behind and the laboring engine noises of the blue van fifty yards ahead, "I'm all right!"
Sandman nodded, twisted on his skis and fired his wirepoon at the van. A shout informed Hourman, "Missed!"
As Sandman reset his wirepoon for another shot, Hourman turned away, digging his poles into the snow.
"Together -- together we can get them!" Sandman shouted.
Hourman glanced to the man and nodded as he zigzagged on his skis to avoid the assault-rifle fire from the ski troopers behind. Gunfire tracked along the road surface and cutting waves of ice chips pelted up at him.
"Ready?" Sandman shouted.
"For what?" asked Hourman.
"When my wirepoon strikes the van, it will reel us into it!"
Hourman raised his eyebrows and stared at Sandman. "And what is it that you want me to do?"
"Just grab me and hang on!"
Hourman nodded. "Okay!"
Sandman shouted, "My count of three. One, two ..." Hourman got ready to grab hold of his colleague. "Three!"
Hourman twisted right and grabbed the Sandman's suitcoat just behind the left shoulder. He heard the coughing sound of the wirepoon as the stainless- steel bolt with barbs at the end hit the van and pulled the attached wire that was spooling out of the gun that Sandman was holding.
The Man of the Hour twisted forward, struggling to keep his balance.
"We did it!" Sandman shouted as he started to grab the wire and pulled himself and Hourman toward the van.
"Here!" Sandman yelled. "Grab the wire! With your increased strength, it'll be easier for you to pull us to the van!"
Reaching out with his left hand, while still holding Sandman with his right, Hourman grabbed hold of the thin wire. Sandman switched positions and grabbed hold of the back of Hourman's tunic.
Hourman started to pull them closer and closer to the speeding van that was now fishtailing all over the road.
Suddenly, Sandman's ski hit a rut and he felt his balance going. He was falling, cursing his luck as he had to let go of Hourman who continued to rocket ahead.
Sandman sprawled onto the road surface. His bindings sprung open, and his left ski slithered down the road ahead of him.
The Sandman spread-eagled his arms and legs to slow his spinning skid across the ice-slicked snow. He raised his head to see Hourman still pulling himself toward the van. But then suddenly, Hourman was airborne, going over an embankment of snow and ice. Sandman saw his teammate's left ski twist away and split in half. Hourman was airborne for one instant, then gone from sight with a shout of rage.
But now there was another problem and that came in the form of the six armed ski troopers coming fast toward The Sandman. The six, thinking that they were opposing just one ordinary man, formed a close-knit wedge as they approached the masked vigilante from New York City.
From the holster underneath his suit jacket, The Sandman pulled out his new gas gun. He adjusted the nozzle at the end of the barrel. Looking back up, he saw that he only had seconds before the ski troopers were upon him. Aiming toward the left of the wedge, Sandman pulled the trigger and an orange cloud of gas spewed out of the gun.
Keeping his finger pressed on the trigger, The Sandman moved his arm from left to right, making sure that none of the six could possibly avoid skiing right into the cloud of knockout gas.
In a matter of seconds, that was exactly what happened. The six ski troopers went through the orange cloud and were instantly knocked unconscious, spilling like ten pins in a bowling alley on the icy road.
"That takes care of that problem," The Sandman remarked to himself.
Sandman reholstered his gas gun. As he retrieved his ski, his only thought was to catch the blue van and al-Kafir. And the only way to intercept the van was to try to quickly look for the best spot to shoot over the embankment. He saw it, and dug in his poles.
As Sandman shot up the embankment that had tripped up Hourman, he could hear his colleague shouting to him, "I'll catch up as best I can!"
Ahead there was another embankment as the road made a hairpin curve. Sandman sideslipped a mogul, gaining speed. The wind had chiseled the top of the embankment flat and Sandman launched himself toward it.
He was roughly parallel to the van now and could see the burly Arab behind the wheel. Al-Kafir, he thought, must still be in the back.
Al-Kafir's driver had seen him and raised a pistol to fire. Sandman realized he was in danger. As the Arab swung his gun out the driver's-side window, Sandman freed his wrist from the strap and held his right pole at the balance point. The Sandman hurtled it with all his might toward the driver. The pole whistled through the open window and burrowed into the driver's head slightly forward and above his left ear. The big Arab slumped over the wheel. The van went into a sudden zigzag, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir screaming for help from the back.
The Sandman felt his lips twist into a grin. The van hammered repeatedly against the embankment, and Sandman could hear al-Kafir moaning as he bounced around the inside.
Suddenly, the van caught a rut and angled sharply, away from the embankment toward the far side of the road. Sandman could see the ground drop off to a precipice ahead. The van would go over the side, and al-Kafir would be killed. "Jump for it!" Sandman shouted.
Al-Kafir's whining in the cold air made him somehow nauseated. "I can't. I'm afraid!"
Sandman could see the angle of the van and the edge of the road. In less than a minute, perhaps much less, the van would be over the side.
The Sandman hurled himself toward the van, praying the impact would break his bindings before he broke his ankles or his legs.
He slammed down hard on the roof of the careering vehicle, his skis gone. He could feel his body starting to roll off the roof of the runaway van.
Summoning all of his force, he stabbed the remaining ski pole downward into the roof of the van.
His right hand reached for the pole and grabbed at it, as his left hand slid across the roof line and fingers locked over the opening for the driver's window.
The pole snapped with a crack, and Sandman's body lurched to the right. As he started to slide from the roof, his right hand made a desperate grab for the window opening on the passenger side.
He was falling. His hands clutched at the opening, and his feet dragged in the snow. Pain shot up his back but if he let go he knew al-Kafir would die and take whatever information he had on False-Face to the grave with him.
The Sandman felt the muscles in his arms extend. His neck was tight with pain. With his jaw set, he tugged himself forward, his left hand reaching for the door handle.
He had it, and the door swung open, Sandman's body swinging with it. His feet ripped a burrow in the snow. He swung his right foot up and wedged it against the interior of the door. The door slapped closed, pressing his body between door and doorframe. His right hand stabbed out for the steering wheel, which was jammed beneath the deadweight of the driver.
The lip of the road was less than fifty yards away. The Sandman had to gamble. He threw his body forward and across the seat. If he fell now, he would go under the wheels.
He could hear al-Kafir screaming from the back of the van. Another sound made his blood run cold. A third Doberman was still in the van, and the door of his cage must have rattled loose from all the shaking.
Sandman pulled the body of the dead driver aside, and twisted in behind the wheel. In the rearview mirror, he could see past the hinged Plexiglas sheet that seperated the driver's compartment from the rear of the van. A huge dark shape lunged at al-Kafir.
The van went into a slide, and The Sandman fought the wheel into the skid.
He could see over the edge of the road -- perhaps six feet and then nothing.
Inside his gloves, his hands sweated.
The Doberman continued his ferocious assault on al-Kafir and Sandman winced at the thought of the damage such an animal could inflict.
He started pumping the brake, first pressure, then no pressure, again and again.
As the snarls of the Doberman merged with al-Kafir's desperate cries for help, The Sandman increased the brake pressure. Gradually, the van slowed. The rear end danced to the right, coming within feet of the soft precipice.
Finally, it came to a stop.
Sandman heard a throttled cry and looked back into the cargo bay of the van. The Doberman's huge mouth seemed to cover al-Kafir's entire face, tearing at his throat. Al-Kafir's blood flowed freely, and as The Sandman watched, the fat Arab's hands dropped from the dog's neck. He saw a glint of steel as al-Kafir came up with a sleek, thin dagger in a last desperate attempt to save his life. The blade swept upward and plunged into the Doberman's stomach.
The big black dog let out a piercing yelp and whipped its head to the side, tearing away half of al-Kafir's throat with its sudden movement. The big animal's back legs jerked in spasms, slipping in the pool of blood that gushed from al-Kafir's neck. The Arab's chubby hand still gripped the jeweled handle of the dagger as the dog collapsed on him.
The Sandman pushed open the Plexiglas divider and stared into the cargo area. The hot blood steamed as cold air swept through the van. Al-Kafir was propped against the inside of the van, his eyes bulging grotesquely from his face. Sandman could see the exposed vertebrae of his neck where the Doberman had ripped his way through muscle and tendon. The dog's blood- covered snout lay across al-Kafir's chest.
Nothing moved.
Finally, The Sandman summoned up the strength to crawl into the back of the van.
A briefcase lay on the floor, the lock secured. Sandman took a small pry bar from under jacket and pried at the lockplate. It resisted.
He shrugged, using the pry bar instead to punch through and rip the leather.
Inside was American money -- a lot of it, in fifties and hundreds. He decided he'd determine its fate later.
Under the money was an address book.
He opened it and saw what appeared to be phone numbers. But there were no names attached. The Sandman figured that if they were important enough to be in code, they were important enough to read.
He looked at the lifeless al-Kafir, the man who Catwoman had said enjoyed watching young girls being ripped apart by dogs.
He felt that some sort of justice had prevailed.
He didn't try to feel sorry.
To be continued ...