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 7
"I'm smarter than I look," Wildcat laughed, poring over al-Kafir's address book. Catwoman sat on the edge of Wildcat's chair, while Batman leaned against the mantle, Hourman beside him. Sandman looked over Wildcat and Catwoman's shoulders at the address book.
Sandman spoke, "Actually, I have done some work with codes and this appears to be something that I've seen before."
"I have a friend," Catwoman piped up, "who loves working anagrams and puzzles -- and I think Batman knows who I'm talking about."
"No, Catwoman, we're not going to seek assistance from The Riddler."
"But ..." she started to plead her case.
"Never mind," he cut her off. "Continue please, Sandman." Batman shifted his weight off the mantle. As he walked around the room, he started to feel stiff. He needed a hot shower but he needed the lead first and hoped al- Kafir's book would provide it.
"I think I know what this is," The Sandman said. "Bring the telephone over, Hourman."
"Gotcha, Sandman."
Hourman picked up the phone and noticed that the cord would not reach where Sandman, Wildcat and Catwoman were. He shrugged. He wasn't expecting any calls anyway. He ripped the cord from the wall and brought the phone to the table where Wildcat and Catwoman sat.
"What do you want with this?" Hourman asked.
"Save me trying to remember the dial. You ripped it out of the wall?" Sandman laughed, looking at the frayed cord and then at Hourman.
"When I'm tired I do stuff like that, and I'm tired," Hourman replied.
Catwoman chuckled. "If I'd done what you done, I'd be tired, too."
Batman nodded, sitting down opposite Catwoman and Wildcat. His eyes stung from fatigue.
"Okay," Sandman began. "This is a very basic kind of code and so obvious it's the sort of thing you could put a mechanical calculator on and blow out a fuse with it."
Hourman walked over to the table, and stared down.
"All right. First, the telephone dial. The number 1 doesn't have any letters with it, and the letter 0 at the other end isn't really a letter at all. It's really a zero, and there aren't any letters with it either. So, you look at these phone numbers and count the number 1 and the 0 as placeholders. Positioners if you like."
Batman nodded. "I follow you, Sandman.
Hourman said with a laugh. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"A very basic code I believe, Hourman," Wildcat observed.
"Right," The Sandman said. He looked back at the address book. "Okay. He has a phone number in here -- area code 217, then 660-5031. I don't think it's anyone's phone number. I think it spells out Arnold."
Catwoman piped up. "Arnold Tosch is a jewel fence and a member of the right- wing underground. He also uses assassins on occasion."
"Here's how it works, " The Sandman continued. "The first letter of Arnold is A, and that corresponds to the number 2 on the dial. But with the A there's also B and C."
"So how do you know which one is which," Wildcat interrupted.
"The placeholders or identifiers, like I said. In 217, the 2 shows which hole in the dial, the 1 shows us which position the letter is in. If it had been Ackroyd instead of Arnold, it would have been 207 instead of 217, because the 0 would signify to use the last letter of the triad. If the name were Abner instead of Arnold, he wouldn't have used a 1 or an 0 -- just moved to the next key for the next letter."
"So a ten digit phone number spells out Arnold?"
"Right, Wildcat, and this next number is --" Sandman peered at the book, "Yes, here, area code 816 and the phone number is 070-2044, a fake prefix if I ever heard one. The repetition of the number 4 is just doubling the letter H at the end of Arnold Tosch. Al-Kafir probably has addresses the same way and other information, too, all like phone numbers. So all I've got to do is translate these phone numbers, and we can work a decoding of the whole book -- everything."
"I shall borrow some additional telephones, then we can share your burden," Hourman proclaimed. Batman didn't even want to know how Hourman planned to do it.
An hour later, they had come up with a detailed reference to False-Face. Apparently, False-Face could be contacted through a woman known as Blaze Fields. No further translation had been necessary after that.
Blaze Fields was known to Catwoman as another right-wing sympathizer in the criminal underground.
Hourman had started down to the hotel lobby to use a working telephone. Batman didn't know how he would explain his costume. But he returned after only a moment. "Those gentlemen from the CIA, I think they wish to converse with us," Hourman announced, as he reentered the room.
"You led them to here?" Wildcat asked.
Hourman merely shrugged.
Batman asked, "Any local authorities with them?"
"My first thought, Batman. Apparently not, however."
"Sandman in the bathroom -- quick!" Batman ordered.
Sandman quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out some large white pills that were round. He gave everyone one of the pills and instructed, "Everybody swallow the pill, it will protect you from the effects of any gas I may use."
There was a knock at the door. Hourman's eyes flickered toward Batman. Batman nodded. He listened, watching.
Hourman opened the door. "Yes -- ahh -- our American spy friends from the snowfields!"
Wildcat started to laugh, hearing Colonel Flagg but not seeing him yet.
"Look, you son of a bitch. Your friends left me and Benson out there near al-Kafir's house to freeze to death, or whatever, while that dame and the guy in the cat suit and Batman took the only car that wasn't blown up and drove away like bats outta hell -- pardon the expression. Where's the rest of your costumed little buddies?"
"In here, Colonel Flagg," Wildcat sang out. He gave Catwoman a wink and she smiled back at him. She was pretty, he thought, more than pretty.
Hourman stepped aside, and Colonel Flagg and the other CIA man stalked through the doorway. Flagg blurted out, "If this were stateside all you'd be in the slammer for everything from assault, to murder, to the Mann Act."
"Mann Act? Doesn't that involve underage girls?" Catwoman smiled. "I'm flattered, Colonel Flagg, but I'm not underage."
"I didn't mean you, lady. I meant what we found left of some poor kid in al- Kafir's chalet."
"Al-Kafir is dead," Batman told Flagg matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," nodded Flagg, "we found the van. Shouldn't keep pets if you can't take care of them. But what about that False-Face?" Flagg insisted, advancing across the room.
"When we get something concrete you'll get it, too. I wish I could expect the same from you, Colonel." Batman replied without conviction.
"I want you and this JSA and this lady jewel thief and this yellow gorrilla and that guy in the cat suit outta my hair. This is government business," ordered Flagg.
"Or what?" Catwoman purred. Batman turned to look at her. "Just what does the government want with False-Face?"
"You know damn well what we want, lady. And from what I know about you, you want to steal 'em." Flagg was feeling rude.
"Ohh," smiled Catwoman, "Those gas canisters. Yes, that would be nice."
"So back off," Flagg shouted. "Just damn well back off, 'cause if the law here in Austria can't touch you, I'll touch you, all of you, so help me. I'm tired, cold, angry, and I got the President of the United States breathing down my neck for those nerve gas canisters."
Wildcat lowered his voice to a whisper, saying, "Sorry about one of your guys getting killed. Is there anything we can do in regards to him?"
Flagg stabbed his hands into his pockets, looked down at the floor for an instant and then at Wildcat. "No, I don't think so."
Colonel Flagg then turned his attention back to Batman. "There was a briefcase loaded with money in al-Kafir's van. If you didn't take the money, you took something else. I want it."
"Nothing you'd be interested in," Batman advised.
"Don't play dumb, Batman," Flagg retorted. "You're not as good at it is I am."
Wildcat looked at Catwoman and smiled.
Flagg's right hand flashed under his coat and reappeared with a snub-nosed shiny revolver. "Now, let me ask that question again."
Wildcat raised his voice a little, watching as the second CIA man drew his firearm. "You think walking in here with a GUN is going get you what you want, Colonel ..."
Wildcat didn't get a chance to finish. The bathroom door burst open, and The Sandman blazed through. The shock of seeing a man in a green suit and orange fedora hat and wearing a gas mask caused the two government men to freeze.
"Nighty-night," Sandman said with a smile in his voice as a green gas cloud was emitted from his gas gun.
"Aw, shit," Flagg growled as he passed out to the floor. Benson collapsed next to him.
Behind the gas mask, Sandman grinned. "How'd you know?"
***
The phone rang, and Ted Grant opened his eyes, watching Bruce Wayne. "Yes, put her through ... Diana? Bruce, here ... yes ... yes, some trouble. With the police. I need you to --" There was a long pause. Bruce's face turned colors, Grant thought. "A what?" Bruce nodded into the phone. "Wait a minute." Then he cupped his palm over the receiver. "Colonel Flagg tracked us to Greece. He's got the Greek government out after Batman, just Batman. Some kind of warrant for attempted murder," Bruce whispered to the room.
"Attempted murder!" Wesley Dodds repeated. "All we did was take his clothes and his gun and all the drapes off the windows and covers off the bed and lock him and the other guy in Catwoman's hotel room when we left Austria."
Rex Tyler laughed.
"Well, you know," Ted Grant grinned. "Some guys get pissed off at little things."
Bruce shrugged and turned back to the phone. "Yes, I figured it was something like that. You've got to get the heat off me, Diana. Catwoman thinks she's got something on this Blaze Fields that can lead us to her, maybe then to False-Face. I can't sit around in the Athens jail just because Colonel Flagg wants my scalp ... right ... I know ... but work a miracle anyway and then send some more help here to Athens right away because we're going to need it probably ... I know ... I know that most of the other members are working their own cases ... I know that, too ... Yes ... I'll leave word through the usual channels on where you can find us. We're all staying at different hotels ... Right ... all right ... And do what you can to call off Flagg, okay? Right. Good-bye," and Bruce hung up.
Bruce Wayne looked at Ted Grant, then at Wesley Dodds, then at Rex Tyler. "Diana should be able to get that warrant, or whatever it is, killed, but it'll take at least a day. And if some policeman spots Batman, I'm --"
"Oh, that should be difficult, how many guys are running around in that kind of an outfit in Athens?" Grant snickered.
"When are we supposed to meet Catwoman at her hotel room?" Rex asked.
"In about an hour," Bruce replied. "She's trying to find out through her underworld contacts which island Blaze Fields makes her headquarters."
"You know," remarked Dodds, "Catwoman's not knowing our real identities is making this real difficult. We have to stay at different hotels and always have to meet at her room."
"Nothing we can do, Wes," Bruce answered. "It's the way we have to do it. She's not exactly one of us."
"She could be," volunteered Rex.
"But she's not," said Ted Grant.
Dodds had a question, "She said her contacts can smuggle us out of Greece?"
"We're going to have to accept on faith that she can do it," Bruce told him.
"I don't think I'm going to like this," Rex Tyler moaned.
***
Batman waited by the gunwales of an old fishing boat. It felt good to be back in his costume. He looked at Wildcat, dressed in his very dark costume. The Sandman looked mysterious and his dark outfit made him appear almost like a shadow. Hourman stood out like a sore thumb. All that yellow in his costume shined like a neon light.
Catwoman, as she did in any clothes, seemed ... like the beautiful jewel thief she was.
Batman had insisted tht she not come, and she had insisted that she would not reveal the location of the island if she did not. He backed down. She was, he told himself, a grown woman who had the right to make her own decisions and risk her own neck. Somehow, the rationalization hadn't eased his fears for her safety.
He, Wildcat, Sandman and Hourman had been smuggled out of Athens in caskets, with Catwoman disguising herself as a Greek widow lamenting the death of her husband and three brothers in a fiery accident. Once the truck had slowed, Batman had thought they had been found out, but then the truck had picked up speed.
The truck carried them to an airfield, and by amphibious aircraft, they had flown down through the Aegean toward Crete, not going quite that far.
The plane had landed on water and they quickly transferred to a fishing boat. It was a smuggling vessel owned by one of Catwoman's European contacts, with nothing outwardly visible that could distinguish it from other vessels that plied the seas. But in secret compartments built into the bowels of the ship were sophisticated radar gear, radio systems, and sonar devices.
Batman, Sandman, Wildcat, Hourman and Catwoman weren't alone on the deck as the dark island gradually became more defined.
With them stood twelve men. What one might call "business associates" of Catwoman's.
Batman slid next to Catwoman and whispered to her in the darkness, "What are you proving by coming along?"
"I don't have to prove anything," she answered. "I'm coming because I wish to come."
"Awful gritty business maybe. Wouldn't you feel better on some rooftop back in Gotham?" he said.
He felt her breath on his ear as she leaned up and whispered beside his left cheek, "I'm wearing silk underwear with handmade lace. I'll survive it."
She was trying to shock him, again, he knew it. But how was he supposed to tell her that he was married?
On the island would be Blaze Fields and perhaps fifty criminals -- Nazis. And maybe -- Batman swallowed hard as he thought of it -- just maybe False- Face.
The throb of the engines stopped beneath his feet.
Catwoman's voice beside him startled him. "Pameh! Pameh!" she ordered.
Her Greek sounded perfect, as it had since they had first departed the plane in Athens. And she had told her men, ordered them, "Let's go!"
A man did a handspring over the rail into the launch and started to work at the pulleys to run it down from the davits into the water.
"Ghreegorah!" It was Catwoman again. And hurry the crew did.
***
He stroked at his beard. That everyone knew it was not a real beard didn't bother him much. He wore it as though it were one. He sat by the yellow lamplight, just listening. The high collared navy-blue turtleneck kept him comfortably warm against the cold breeze blowing in from the ocean.
He thought about the news from Austria.
False-Face didn't like failure.
He watched Blaze Fields, she was addressing a group of men and women who stood around the walls of the room. The room itself was at the top of the tower of the monastery that dominated the center of the island.
"It is imperative that all of you when you leave tonight realize the ultimate importance of his task," she intoned. "The destruction of the existing world order and its replacement with the one true order."
That she spoke in English to these men and women seemed natural enough to False-Face. They were of mixed nationalities. Most of them were Turks, but there were also some Greeks, some Germans, some Austrians, and two Frenchmen. English, however well or poorly it was understood by those assembled at the edge of the lamplight, was the only common bond, besides a belief in the principles of National Socialism and the destiny of mankind.
False-Face sat aloof at the opposite end of the partially roofless structure. There would be another night of sleep with Blaze, another night of being the subject of her desire. At first it had pleased him but now it was wearisome.
"Tonight, the seaplanes shall come and each of you shall be taken to the points for your individual missions," Blaze continued. "Tonight, you link hands with destiny," this last phrase she almost whispered.
Blaze Fields then turned to False-Face. There was a wildness in her eyes that bespoke savagery, a headier lust than she showed even in bed. "False- Face," she cried, "a word for our warriors of the Reich."
False-Face nodded and stood. He smiled. It was one of the moments that would be written in the history books. Perhaps some of these books would recount it as part of the legend.
As False-Face spoke, he established eye contact with each of them for a brief instant. "We stand at the threshold of destiny, which the very evolution of mankind has ordained that only we can fulfill." He felt badly speaking this way before Greek and Turks. Their racial heritage was so mixed. "Each task, however small it may seem, is of vital importance in the framework of our plan. Not all of you will even see one of the nerve gas canisters, and some of you will not live to tell of this hour to your children and your children's children. But we strike the blow, the fatal blow, which is as at once the breath of life and the wind of change. Go forth assured in the knowledge that you are about the business of destiny. And may the spirit of our dead leader live again through you, see again through your eyes, triumph through your deeds." He raised his right hand in the classic salute he had learned as a boy. Heels snapped together as the others raised their right hands as well.
False-Face was slightly amused at himself for becoming emotional. His throat felt a momentary tightness and he sniffed loudly to hold back a tear.
"Destiny," he whispered. The lamplight flickered. It had flickered throughout much of the evening of talk of dreams. But it did not die out.
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 7
"I'm smarter than I look," Wildcat laughed, poring over al-Kafir's address book. Catwoman sat on the edge of Wildcat's chair, while Batman leaned against the mantle, Hourman beside him. Sandman looked over Wildcat and Catwoman's shoulders at the address book.
Sandman spoke, "Actually, I have done some work with codes and this appears to be something that I've seen before."
"I have a friend," Catwoman piped up, "who loves working anagrams and puzzles -- and I think Batman knows who I'm talking about."
"No, Catwoman, we're not going to seek assistance from The Riddler."
"But ..." she started to plead her case.
"Never mind," he cut her off. "Continue please, Sandman." Batman shifted his weight off the mantle. As he walked around the room, he started to feel stiff. He needed a hot shower but he needed the lead first and hoped al- Kafir's book would provide it.
"I think I know what this is," The Sandman said. "Bring the telephone over, Hourman."
"Gotcha, Sandman."
Hourman picked up the phone and noticed that the cord would not reach where Sandman, Wildcat and Catwoman were. He shrugged. He wasn't expecting any calls anyway. He ripped the cord from the wall and brought the phone to the table where Wildcat and Catwoman sat.
"What do you want with this?" Hourman asked.
"Save me trying to remember the dial. You ripped it out of the wall?" Sandman laughed, looking at the frayed cord and then at Hourman.
"When I'm tired I do stuff like that, and I'm tired," Hourman replied.
Catwoman chuckled. "If I'd done what you done, I'd be tired, too."
Batman nodded, sitting down opposite Catwoman and Wildcat. His eyes stung from fatigue.
"Okay," Sandman began. "This is a very basic kind of code and so obvious it's the sort of thing you could put a mechanical calculator on and blow out a fuse with it."
Hourman walked over to the table, and stared down.
"All right. First, the telephone dial. The number 1 doesn't have any letters with it, and the letter 0 at the other end isn't really a letter at all. It's really a zero, and there aren't any letters with it either. So, you look at these phone numbers and count the number 1 and the 0 as placeholders. Positioners if you like."
Batman nodded. "I follow you, Sandman.
Hourman said with a laugh. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"A very basic code I believe, Hourman," Wildcat observed.
"Right," The Sandman said. He looked back at the address book. "Okay. He has a phone number in here -- area code 217, then 660-5031. I don't think it's anyone's phone number. I think it spells out Arnold."
Catwoman piped up. "Arnold Tosch is a jewel fence and a member of the right- wing underground. He also uses assassins on occasion."
"Here's how it works, " The Sandman continued. "The first letter of Arnold is A, and that corresponds to the number 2 on the dial. But with the A there's also B and C."
"So how do you know which one is which," Wildcat interrupted.
"The placeholders or identifiers, like I said. In 217, the 2 shows which hole in the dial, the 1 shows us which position the letter is in. If it had been Ackroyd instead of Arnold, it would have been 207 instead of 217, because the 0 would signify to use the last letter of the triad. If the name were Abner instead of Arnold, he wouldn't have used a 1 or an 0 -- just moved to the next key for the next letter."
"So a ten digit phone number spells out Arnold?"
"Right, Wildcat, and this next number is --" Sandman peered at the book, "Yes, here, area code 816 and the phone number is 070-2044, a fake prefix if I ever heard one. The repetition of the number 4 is just doubling the letter H at the end of Arnold Tosch. Al-Kafir probably has addresses the same way and other information, too, all like phone numbers. So all I've got to do is translate these phone numbers, and we can work a decoding of the whole book -- everything."
"I shall borrow some additional telephones, then we can share your burden," Hourman proclaimed. Batman didn't even want to know how Hourman planned to do it.
An hour later, they had come up with a detailed reference to False-Face. Apparently, False-Face could be contacted through a woman known as Blaze Fields. No further translation had been necessary after that.
Blaze Fields was known to Catwoman as another right-wing sympathizer in the criminal underground.
Hourman had started down to the hotel lobby to use a working telephone. Batman didn't know how he would explain his costume. But he returned after only a moment. "Those gentlemen from the CIA, I think they wish to converse with us," Hourman announced, as he reentered the room.
"You led them to here?" Wildcat asked.
Hourman merely shrugged.
Batman asked, "Any local authorities with them?"
"My first thought, Batman. Apparently not, however."
"Sandman in the bathroom -- quick!" Batman ordered.
Sandman quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out some large white pills that were round. He gave everyone one of the pills and instructed, "Everybody swallow the pill, it will protect you from the effects of any gas I may use."
There was a knock at the door. Hourman's eyes flickered toward Batman. Batman nodded. He listened, watching.
Hourman opened the door. "Yes -- ahh -- our American spy friends from the snowfields!"
Wildcat started to laugh, hearing Colonel Flagg but not seeing him yet.
"Look, you son of a bitch. Your friends left me and Benson out there near al-Kafir's house to freeze to death, or whatever, while that dame and the guy in the cat suit and Batman took the only car that wasn't blown up and drove away like bats outta hell -- pardon the expression. Where's the rest of your costumed little buddies?"
"In here, Colonel Flagg," Wildcat sang out. He gave Catwoman a wink and she smiled back at him. She was pretty, he thought, more than pretty.
Hourman stepped aside, and Colonel Flagg and the other CIA man stalked through the doorway. Flagg blurted out, "If this were stateside all you'd be in the slammer for everything from assault, to murder, to the Mann Act."
"Mann Act? Doesn't that involve underage girls?" Catwoman smiled. "I'm flattered, Colonel Flagg, but I'm not underage."
"I didn't mean you, lady. I meant what we found left of some poor kid in al- Kafir's chalet."
"Al-Kafir is dead," Batman told Flagg matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," nodded Flagg, "we found the van. Shouldn't keep pets if you can't take care of them. But what about that False-Face?" Flagg insisted, advancing across the room.
"When we get something concrete you'll get it, too. I wish I could expect the same from you, Colonel." Batman replied without conviction.
"I want you and this JSA and this lady jewel thief and this yellow gorrilla and that guy in the cat suit outta my hair. This is government business," ordered Flagg.
"Or what?" Catwoman purred. Batman turned to look at her. "Just what does the government want with False-Face?"
"You know damn well what we want, lady. And from what I know about you, you want to steal 'em." Flagg was feeling rude.
"Ohh," smiled Catwoman, "Those gas canisters. Yes, that would be nice."
"So back off," Flagg shouted. "Just damn well back off, 'cause if the law here in Austria can't touch you, I'll touch you, all of you, so help me. I'm tired, cold, angry, and I got the President of the United States breathing down my neck for those nerve gas canisters."
Wildcat lowered his voice to a whisper, saying, "Sorry about one of your guys getting killed. Is there anything we can do in regards to him?"
Flagg stabbed his hands into his pockets, looked down at the floor for an instant and then at Wildcat. "No, I don't think so."
Colonel Flagg then turned his attention back to Batman. "There was a briefcase loaded with money in al-Kafir's van. If you didn't take the money, you took something else. I want it."
"Nothing you'd be interested in," Batman advised.
"Don't play dumb, Batman," Flagg retorted. "You're not as good at it is I am."
Wildcat looked at Catwoman and smiled.
Flagg's right hand flashed under his coat and reappeared with a snub-nosed shiny revolver. "Now, let me ask that question again."
Wildcat raised his voice a little, watching as the second CIA man drew his firearm. "You think walking in here with a GUN is going get you what you want, Colonel ..."
Wildcat didn't get a chance to finish. The bathroom door burst open, and The Sandman blazed through. The shock of seeing a man in a green suit and orange fedora hat and wearing a gas mask caused the two government men to freeze.
"Nighty-night," Sandman said with a smile in his voice as a green gas cloud was emitted from his gas gun.
"Aw, shit," Flagg growled as he passed out to the floor. Benson collapsed next to him.
Behind the gas mask, Sandman grinned. "How'd you know?"
***
The phone rang, and Ted Grant opened his eyes, watching Bruce Wayne. "Yes, put her through ... Diana? Bruce, here ... yes ... yes, some trouble. With the police. I need you to --" There was a long pause. Bruce's face turned colors, Grant thought. "A what?" Bruce nodded into the phone. "Wait a minute." Then he cupped his palm over the receiver. "Colonel Flagg tracked us to Greece. He's got the Greek government out after Batman, just Batman. Some kind of warrant for attempted murder," Bruce whispered to the room.
"Attempted murder!" Wesley Dodds repeated. "All we did was take his clothes and his gun and all the drapes off the windows and covers off the bed and lock him and the other guy in Catwoman's hotel room when we left Austria."
Rex Tyler laughed.
"Well, you know," Ted Grant grinned. "Some guys get pissed off at little things."
Bruce shrugged and turned back to the phone. "Yes, I figured it was something like that. You've got to get the heat off me, Diana. Catwoman thinks she's got something on this Blaze Fields that can lead us to her, maybe then to False-Face. I can't sit around in the Athens jail just because Colonel Flagg wants my scalp ... right ... I know ... but work a miracle anyway and then send some more help here to Athens right away because we're going to need it probably ... I know ... I know that most of the other members are working their own cases ... I know that, too ... Yes ... I'll leave word through the usual channels on where you can find us. We're all staying at different hotels ... Right ... all right ... And do what you can to call off Flagg, okay? Right. Good-bye," and Bruce hung up.
Bruce Wayne looked at Ted Grant, then at Wesley Dodds, then at Rex Tyler. "Diana should be able to get that warrant, or whatever it is, killed, but it'll take at least a day. And if some policeman spots Batman, I'm --"
"Oh, that should be difficult, how many guys are running around in that kind of an outfit in Athens?" Grant snickered.
"When are we supposed to meet Catwoman at her hotel room?" Rex asked.
"In about an hour," Bruce replied. "She's trying to find out through her underworld contacts which island Blaze Fields makes her headquarters."
"You know," remarked Dodds, "Catwoman's not knowing our real identities is making this real difficult. We have to stay at different hotels and always have to meet at her room."
"Nothing we can do, Wes," Bruce answered. "It's the way we have to do it. She's not exactly one of us."
"She could be," volunteered Rex.
"But she's not," said Ted Grant.
Dodds had a question, "She said her contacts can smuggle us out of Greece?"
"We're going to have to accept on faith that she can do it," Bruce told him.
"I don't think I'm going to like this," Rex Tyler moaned.
***
Batman waited by the gunwales of an old fishing boat. It felt good to be back in his costume. He looked at Wildcat, dressed in his very dark costume. The Sandman looked mysterious and his dark outfit made him appear almost like a shadow. Hourman stood out like a sore thumb. All that yellow in his costume shined like a neon light.
Catwoman, as she did in any clothes, seemed ... like the beautiful jewel thief she was.
Batman had insisted tht she not come, and she had insisted that she would not reveal the location of the island if she did not. He backed down. She was, he told himself, a grown woman who had the right to make her own decisions and risk her own neck. Somehow, the rationalization hadn't eased his fears for her safety.
He, Wildcat, Sandman and Hourman had been smuggled out of Athens in caskets, with Catwoman disguising herself as a Greek widow lamenting the death of her husband and three brothers in a fiery accident. Once the truck had slowed, Batman had thought they had been found out, but then the truck had picked up speed.
The truck carried them to an airfield, and by amphibious aircraft, they had flown down through the Aegean toward Crete, not going quite that far.
The plane had landed on water and they quickly transferred to a fishing boat. It was a smuggling vessel owned by one of Catwoman's European contacts, with nothing outwardly visible that could distinguish it from other vessels that plied the seas. But in secret compartments built into the bowels of the ship were sophisticated radar gear, radio systems, and sonar devices.
Batman, Sandman, Wildcat, Hourman and Catwoman weren't alone on the deck as the dark island gradually became more defined.
With them stood twelve men. What one might call "business associates" of Catwoman's.
Batman slid next to Catwoman and whispered to her in the darkness, "What are you proving by coming along?"
"I don't have to prove anything," she answered. "I'm coming because I wish to come."
"Awful gritty business maybe. Wouldn't you feel better on some rooftop back in Gotham?" he said.
He felt her breath on his ear as she leaned up and whispered beside his left cheek, "I'm wearing silk underwear with handmade lace. I'll survive it."
She was trying to shock him, again, he knew it. But how was he supposed to tell her that he was married?
On the island would be Blaze Fields and perhaps fifty criminals -- Nazis. And maybe -- Batman swallowed hard as he thought of it -- just maybe False- Face.
The throb of the engines stopped beneath his feet.
Catwoman's voice beside him startled him. "Pameh! Pameh!" she ordered.
Her Greek sounded perfect, as it had since they had first departed the plane in Athens. And she had told her men, ordered them, "Let's go!"
A man did a handspring over the rail into the launch and started to work at the pulleys to run it down from the davits into the water.
"Ghreegorah!" It was Catwoman again. And hurry the crew did.
***
He stroked at his beard. That everyone knew it was not a real beard didn't bother him much. He wore it as though it were one. He sat by the yellow lamplight, just listening. The high collared navy-blue turtleneck kept him comfortably warm against the cold breeze blowing in from the ocean.
He thought about the news from Austria.
False-Face didn't like failure.
He watched Blaze Fields, she was addressing a group of men and women who stood around the walls of the room. The room itself was at the top of the tower of the monastery that dominated the center of the island.
"It is imperative that all of you when you leave tonight realize the ultimate importance of his task," she intoned. "The destruction of the existing world order and its replacement with the one true order."
That she spoke in English to these men and women seemed natural enough to False-Face. They were of mixed nationalities. Most of them were Turks, but there were also some Greeks, some Germans, some Austrians, and two Frenchmen. English, however well or poorly it was understood by those assembled at the edge of the lamplight, was the only common bond, besides a belief in the principles of National Socialism and the destiny of mankind.
False-Face sat aloof at the opposite end of the partially roofless structure. There would be another night of sleep with Blaze, another night of being the subject of her desire. At first it had pleased him but now it was wearisome.
"Tonight, the seaplanes shall come and each of you shall be taken to the points for your individual missions," Blaze continued. "Tonight, you link hands with destiny," this last phrase she almost whispered.
Blaze Fields then turned to False-Face. There was a wildness in her eyes that bespoke savagery, a headier lust than she showed even in bed. "False- Face," she cried, "a word for our warriors of the Reich."
False-Face nodded and stood. He smiled. It was one of the moments that would be written in the history books. Perhaps some of these books would recount it as part of the legend.
As False-Face spoke, he established eye contact with each of them for a brief instant. "We stand at the threshold of destiny, which the very evolution of mankind has ordained that only we can fulfill." He felt badly speaking this way before Greek and Turks. Their racial heritage was so mixed. "Each task, however small it may seem, is of vital importance in the framework of our plan. Not all of you will even see one of the nerve gas canisters, and some of you will not live to tell of this hour to your children and your children's children. But we strike the blow, the fatal blow, which is as at once the breath of life and the wind of change. Go forth assured in the knowledge that you are about the business of destiny. And may the spirit of our dead leader live again through you, see again through your eyes, triumph through your deeds." He raised his right hand in the classic salute he had learned as a boy. Heels snapped together as the others raised their right hands as well.
False-Face was slightly amused at himself for becoming emotional. His throat felt a momentary tightness and he sniffed loudly to hold back a tear.
"Destiny," he whispered. The lamplight flickered. It had flickered throughout much of the evening of talk of dreams. But it did not die out.
To be continued ...