JSA: The Face Of Evil
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.
CHAPTER 2
False-Face sat on a chair in his London hotel room. He made his exit from Florida in the disguise of a horse-faced girl who worked at the British embassy in Washington, leaving her body with its throat slit beneath a railway bridge. He had just been informed of the unsuccessful detonation of the bomb laced with VX nerve gas at Cape Canaveral, and a cold fury flashed in his eyes. Somehow those meddling heroes of the Justice Society of America had managed to foil his plot to devastate the upcoming American space program.
"You say that Batman and some others are here in London, Burns?"
"Yes, Herr False-Face," replied the deputy head of False-Face's London Nazi network.
False-Face considered that, tapping the arm of the chair with his finger. "And that before Batman arrived, there was some sort of assassination attempt on this Wildcat character?" he continued.
"It was in all the papers here, Herr False-Face. Apparently because of Wildcat's close ties with Scotland Yard and British Intelligence. The hit men were labeled as IRA killers. Apparently Wildcat had helped the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad in a counterattack against a group of IRA personnel not long before you acquired the canisters of nerve gas, Herr False-Face. Revenge seems to have been the motive."
"Excellent," False-Face said. "If the IRA was credited with this bungled attempt on Wildcat, then when our attempt is successful, perhaps they'll get credit for that, too. That suits my purpose well. Very well," and he leaned back in the chair.
He was fatigued, but he had to move on immediately. At the far side of the room was the suitcase that contained his next identity. Another woman, this time a German. She would get him to the United States. Once there, a Catholic priest. And then one more disguise and it would be over, through. He wondered what it would be like to see his own face every day, day in, day out. In preparation for the events soon to come he had not lived with his own face for six years. He was always someone else, smoking his or her cigarettes or cigars, wearing his or her clothing, copying his or her voice, living his or her life to carry out his own.
He abandoned his own voice, assuming the lilting Bavarian alto of the manufactured identity of the German woman. "Herr Burns, when will the assassination team be ready to see me?"
***
Selina Kyle looked into the mirror and saw Sister Angelica staring back at her. The white-peaked black veil all but concealed her hair, and not a bit of makeup powdered her face. She stepped away from the mirror, looking down at herself. The black habit extended to just to the top of her low-heeled black shoes. She picked up the wireframe glasses and put them on. They had belonged to a Sister who was dead now, and they slightly distorted her vision. The effect on her sight was unnerving to her, but not terribly dramatic. She looked again in the mirror.
The effect on her appearance was startling.
The glasses somehow obscured the greeness of her eyes and reshaped her face -- much like what her cowl did on her Catwoman costume.
"Maybe we can talk you into this on a full-time basis -- you make a good- looking nun."
Selina Kyle turned around, removing the glasses. It was Sister Albert. "Not my style, Sister." She smiled.
"Are you ready? To go to the school, I mean?"
Selina Kyle nodded. "I'm little nervous without any weapons."
"I'll fix that. Come with me," and Sister Albert started down the hall toward a wooden door at the far end, adding, "There weren't enough Catholics in town here to justify a priest on a full-time basis, but with us being involved in the school we got to stay. With no priest, well, this little room means a lot more to us." She opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on a light. Selina followed her.
It was a small chapel. Three stained-glass panels above the altar diffused a blue light over the three pews on each side of the center aisle. Sister Albert dipped her fingers in a font of holy water and made the Sign of the Cross.
Sister Catherine entered the chapel and repeated the elder nun's gestures.
"We're going to pray," Sister Albert said abruptly. "That those Nazis don't use their nerve gas, that the children don't get hurt, that no one gets killed, that the good guys win -- and we'll even pray for you. How about that?"
Selina ran her tongue over her lips -- they felt odd without lipstick. She nodded, stumbling over the word, "Yes."
The two sisters seemed to be waiting for her beside the font.
Selina Kyle dipped her fingers into the water. It had been a long time, such a long time, she was almost embarrassed doing it.
***
Batman looked up and across the room at Wildcat, standing beside the bar. Colonel Sam Flagg, rubbing his hands across his rugged face, evidently very tired, sat on a stool at the end of the bar opposite from Wildcat. The CIA man was content to let the costumed heroes do the rough stuff during the course of this little raid of a London pub. Dr Mid-Nite was speaking to a potential informant. Batman listened to the questioning.
Mid-Nite threw the worthless informant to the floor and looked up to his three companions. "These blasted thugs don't know anything. Let's go."
While the American group was moving toward the door of the pub, Dr Mid-Nite said, "It's apparent that somehow or other, our nemisis False-Face has once again evaded the forces of justice. He is probably either in Germany or the United States, perhaps here in London again. And doubtless his disguise is impeccable and we will be hard pressed to penetrate it."
"What you're saying," Wildcat began, "is that there's nothing we can do to stop False-Face until he makes his next move."
"Then just react like we have been," Colonel Flagg added.
Speaking to no one in particular, Batman said, "I don't have any alternatives, but that's just what we can't do. Take those dastardly villians who jumped Wildcat. Granted they were IRA and probably it was a revenge motive for the affair at Marchand's some months back when he halped nail their guy O'Malley. But it could have just as easily been someone False-Face sent. What I'm saying is that False-Face may be looking at us the same way we're looking at him. Look what he did when he tried to kill Mid-Nite, here, while he was in his civilian identity."
"Quite," said a mollified Dr Mid-Nite as his face flushed.
"Anyway, False-Face isn't above knocking off the competition," Batman continued. "And if we keep waiting for him, he's going to come up with an operation we can't storm our way into and stop. I figure he's going to go for the big one this time. He's proved he will set off a bomb laced with the VX nerve gas twice and that he's capable of getting a device into position anywhere he wants it. He's netted one detonation out of it. Thanks to Green Lantern, it went off harmlessly in space. So far, we've only recovered one of the one hundred stolen VX nerve gas canisters. But I don't think that makes us even. He's way ahead of the game because he knows his next move and we don't. He probably knows our next move almost as soon as we determine what it is. The whole deal on that island off Crete was to draw our attention, lull us into assuming we'd stopped his plans temporarily. And he's got Catwoman, probably as an ace against me if he needs it. We've got to find Catwoman. She's the key. If we find her, we've got a pipeline into at least part of his operation. I don't care how we nail False-Face -- I just want to nail his ass to the wall and use it for a damn dartboard with him still wearing it."
He felt better for saying it all, but Batman really wasn't sure if he'd said anything besides the obvious. He wondered whether his concern for Catwoman overshadowed his reason.
Dr Mid-Nite spoke after a long pause. "Even as we talk, Diana is putting together a dossier on False-Face of every intelligence agency to which we have access. I have contacted my sources, asking them to analyze the data as it is available, to construct a composite profile -- both physical and psychological -- containing every known detail on False-Face. We are also gathering data on all known associates of False-Face, all known Nazi sympathizers and other pro-Nazi, right-wing elements."
"It's going to be an awful big dossier," Flagg offered.
"Yes," Dr Mid-Nite allowed. "But the fact remains, it is our most vital tool against False-Face. Hourman is still recovering in a hospital bed in Iraklion. He hopes to be back in the U.S. soon. We are also back-checking those spurious identities that we know of -- his disguise as the German air hostess Johanna, for example -- looking for any factual basis there might be for such identities. I doubt he attended a training school for airline hostesses, so it is either the identity of a woman he murdered and replaced, or some other ruse was used -- perhaps an identity made of whole cloth but substantiated by fraudulent records. There may be some clues to his real appearance in this regard."
"Short-lived identities like the Gateway City policeman he posed as when they tried the detonation there," Batman injected, "are probably dead ends."
"Wouldn't it be marvelous if people had the brains to realize that Hitler was a whacko and didn't want to strut around and pretend to be Nazis -- geez. What a bunch of losers," Wildcat observed.
Batman shrugged. "Probably a lot of people were disappointed when Genghis Khan died -- what can I say?"
"So far," Colonel Flagg noted thoughtfully, "it appears we have no bizzare rumblings, nothing to indicate False-Face has commenced an operation."
"It's clear to me," Batman began, "that all of this is part of one operation, just various phases, all building up to one thing. And if I'm right and False-Face's achieved his purpose of demonstrating he'll use the weapons, then he's ready for the final stage. It could be anything, but it has to be some form of blackmail. He's not bent on suicide. The way he fights -- using his wits to stay alive and always covering his ass with an escape route -- proves that. He doesn't want to turn the earth into an uninhabitable place. He wants to use the VX in order to get his way, and he wants the world to know that he will use the gas if he doesn't."
"But what could his goal be, Batman?" asked Dr Mid-Nite. "You know him best."
Batman looked at the Master of Darkness. "False-Face will let us know. Bank on it."
***
The man known only as the The Wolf studied his reflection in the rearview mirror of the Mercedes automobile. A fine face, he thought, strong chin, patrician nose, blue eyes that had set many a heart racing. His close- cropped blond hair was so light that the premature gray that salted it hardly showed at all. He adjusted the knot of the black silk tie he wore.
Through the Mercedes windshield he could watch the outside of the pub and watch the positions of his other men. It was only a matter of time.
He glanced at the khaki raincoat beside him on the front passenger seat. Beneath it was the weapon with which he intended to assassinate Batman, just as False-Face's people had instructed and paid him to do.
He flicked back the raincoat for an instant. The prod was precocked, with the custom-fabricated, three-bladed hunting bolt in the flyway. A flick of the safety to the off position and a gentle touch of the trigger was all that would be required. At a range of twenty-five yards, the bolt would penetrate Batman's neck from the left side and probably sever the spinal column and rupture the carotid artery on the right.
No noise, no fuss.
The Wolf liked that.
There was always the chance of a miss, of course. A really strong and sudden gust of wind or a rough previous evening giving one a shaky hand or jerky trigger finger. But it was a very calm night, with a light mist falling, so light as to be hardly noticeable, and he'd had a lovely relaxing evening the night before and had not overindulged -- in anything.
Several clandestine services used the crossbow. The Wolf mentally ticked off the times he used it -- In West Berlin twice, in Paris once, in Naples once, in Monaco once, in Tel Aviv twice.
He was satisfied. He waited. The American crimefighter Batman would come.
In the event things did go sour, underneath his tweed sport coat was a ..22- caliber semiautomatic with a silencer.
Violence, to be truly effective, The Wolf had always thought, should be subtle and understated.
He waited.
***
Dr Mid-Nite started through the double glass doors, leading out of the London pub.
Colonel Flagg followed. "Looks like more of that damn drizzle," he observed.
Batman shrugged as he came out next. It was colder than it had been, and the night sky was weeping.
Dr Mid-Nite adjusted the special goggles that he wore over his eyes. His red tunic was cloaked by a long green cape. "Not a bad evening."
Batman just looked at him. It was evident that a man who couldn't see idea of "not a bad evening" and anyone else's idea of the same night were totally different.
"That spook guy in your group said that he would transport us back to the United States very early tomorrow?" Colonel Flagg asked, huddled in his typical spy trench coat.
"Don't let him hear you calling him that, Colonel," Wildcat said from behind. "The Spectre doesn't appreciate being called 'Spooky.'"
"Indeed," Batman said. "But because of his great powers, he was able to transport us and the Batmobile, here, to London, in the blink of an eye."
"When this is all over, I'm going to write one hell of a report for the CIA," Flagg assured Batman.
Wildcat looked at Flagg and said, "Like they'll believe you."
The group was headed for another pub that was said to be frequented by Nazi sympathizers in London.
Across the street, Batman noticed a new Mercedes. It was a down-sized four- door that topped 115 miles per hour. It would look nice in the garage in Wayne Manor, he thought.
Batman reached out his left hand and said, "What do you think of that, Wildcat?"
"What? The Mercedes?"
"Yes, what do you think of it? Not that gray color but maybe in black?"
He watched Wildcat's eyes as the man appraised the car. "Why not one of the little sportsters? But I think you're right, it would look better in black."
"Yeah, but I bet Batman thinks everything looks better in black," Flagg laughed.
Batman's lip twitched. "Watch it, Colonel, or I might start liking you. Come on, we're wet already -- let's take a look at the car." The Caped Crusader wanted to do anything that would get his mind away from the plight of Catwoman -- not knowing the exact nature of her situation, he let his imagination play games that he didn't like.
"It's raining -- or doesn't anybody care?" Wildcat asked. Batman shot him a scowl and started across the street. Dr Mid-Nite was beside him and Flagg fell into step.
There had appeared to be no one in the car from across the street. And through the increasing heavy rain, Batman couldn't even see through the dark glass of the broad flat windshield.
Wildcat was saying something and Batman turned around. "I didn't catch what you said."
"I think there's somebody in the car, Batman. I saw something moving. This is embarrassing."
Dr Mid-Nite looked at the Mercedes more closely. He hadn't been paying any attention to the interior. He was about five yards from where he stood on the curb opposite the pub.
The rain was coming down pretty hard. Mid-Nite started toward the car. "I don't see -- Holy shit!"
Dr Mid-Nite threw himself left away from the car. Batman threw himself toward the right, across the sidewalk toward a shop window. "Look out!" he shouted.
He could see the window being cranked down, then a twang and a whoosh. A plate-glass window shattered above his head. He was soaked now, rolling out of a puddle of standing water.
The Mercedes was already in motion, screeching away from the curb.
Sudden bursts of gunfire hammered toward Batman from the opposite side of the street. As the Dark Knight from Gotham City rolled and then pushed himself up, his eyes took in the shattered store window and the mannequin of a woman in an expensively tailored pink suit. The mannequin was pinned to a round pillar in the interior side of the window, a crossbow bolt through the neck. He swallowed hard.
Wildcat was on the move. Dr Mid-Nite reached to his utility belt and pulled out one of his patented Blackout Bombs. Colonel Flagg held a gleaming snub- nosed revolver in his right fist and was running for cover.
There were more sounds of glass exploding. Across the street a figure broke and ran -- a man wearing a knit cap and a blue rain jacket and carrying a pistol with a long slide. The adversary turned and fired. The gun made no noticeable sound. Wildcat whipped a Shuriken fighting star at the man, and the knit cap spun into the air in pain with the weapon stuck firmly in his right forearm.
Wildcat was crouched behind an off-white Volvo. He saw two men near the corner of the pub on the far side of the street.
One of the men made a run for it, firing a silenced pistol as he went. Wildcat began running toward them in a zig-zag pattern in an effort to keep from being shot. The gunman's weapon boomed once, then once again, and he started to become frustrated by his inability to hit the moving target that was coming closer and closer with each passing second.
Then, suddenly, everything went black. The gunman could no longer see. This was courtesy of Dr Mid-Nite's Blackout Bomb. A moment later, Wildcat hammered his body into the would-be assassin and slammed him through a plate-glass window.
The second man, also unable to see, but who certainly heard the breaking glass, raised a small submachine gun, "Get down, Wildcat!" Dr Mid-Nite shouted.
Dr Mid-Nite's only real power was the ability to see in the dark. He could clearly see the machine gunner and the man's body reeled from the punch from the Master of Darkness. Then his knees buckled, and the sub gun danced bullets off the pavement at his feet as he sagged like a heap of rags.
Batman ran to join Flagg at the far end of the street, where the CIA officer had run another gunner to earth. He wheeled as he heard the whine of an accelerating motor behind him. The gray Mercedes roared toward him, jumping the curb. The Masked Manhunter realized in an instant that the car had boxed him in. "Batman!" It was Wildcat shouting. The car raced forward.
In the split second before life became death, Batman hurtled his body toward the window of a leather-goods shop behind him, hunching his shoulders, trying to tuck-roll in midair. His arms shielded his face and head as the glass shattered around him.
The Mercedes glanced off the front of the shop and careered wildly over the curve and back into the street. The wheels spun madly on the wet pavement as the car picked up speed and slipped into the night.
As Batman pulled himself up, shards of razor-edged glass fell from his cape and crunched under his boots.
Dr Mid-Nite was running up to him. "Batman," he shouted, "you're --"
"I'm all right," Batman said. "That dastardly villian, I'll thrash him brutally."
"Hey, Batman!" It was Wildcat, and the Gotham Avenger stepped out of the display window, gingerly brushing the glass off his costume. "Let's chase him in the Batmobile!"
Batman felt his jaw set. The Mercedes hadn't had time to get too far ahead. "Let's go, Wildcat!" and Batman, glass still falling from his costume, water streaming down his face, ran toward the Batmobile.
***
Batman jumped into the eleven-year-old Batmobile. Wildcat got into the passenger seat. Pushing a button, the Caped Crusader started the motor and put the vehicle in drive.
A white police car with a blue flasher was coming up fast behind him, and Batman layed out a screech of rubber as he accelerated. Turning several blocks ahead he could see a gray Mercedes -- he hoped it was the same one.
Upshifting into third gear, the speedometer read nearly fifty as he cut through a red light.
Batman whipped the wheel hard to the left, barely avoiding a double-decker bus. He realized he was driving on the wrong side of the street. "This is England, remember!" Wildcat shouted.
Batman shrugged, double-clutching to downshift, taking the same right the Mercedes had taken. He was leaving Marylebone High Street and a sign read Hammersmith Flyover.
"What the hell's a 'flyover,' anyway?" Wildcat shouted.
"Like an expressway. They just talk funny over here. Hang on." Batman upshifted through third and into fourth, cutting hard right into what he hoped was the fast lane. The Mercedes was nowhere in sight.
"He could have gotten off at one of those exits," Wildcat said, his hands gripping the dash.
"What would you do, Wildcat, if you had just botched an assassination?"
"How the hell should I know," Wildcat shouted. The windshield wipers thwacked at high speed, trying to clear the sheets of falling rain. "I never tried to assassinate anybody."
"You'd get out of town as fast as you could. Read that sign --"
Wildcat read out the sign for Chadwick, and Batman noted they were heading into the West Country. The speedometer needle hovered around one hundred as the Dark Knight streaked his way through the slower-moving traffic around him.
"You know, Batman, if you ever have to stop this thing suddenly, we're splat all over the road," said Wildcat.
Batman only nodded as he dodged a medium-sized truck. He double clutched and downshifted, and the needle redlined on the tachometer as he threaded the space between two more trucks. Ahead of them, he could see the Mercedes.
"Whoever the hell that guy is who tried killing us just never planned on us walking across the street to look at his pretty car," Batman reflected.
"I'll remember that if I ever want to assassinate somebody," Wildcat laughed. "Always use a boring-looking car."
The speedometer bounced at a 105, and the Batmobile was hydroplaning. If Batman tried lowering his speed before they hit drier pavement, he'd lose control of the car. His hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly.
The Mercedes was growing ahead of them. "He hasn't made us yet," Wildcat shouted
"He's going to, real quick," Batman shot back.
Batman slowed his speed to seventy, matching the Mercedes, and fell into position just to its right and half a car length back.
"Doesn't this car of yours have weapons like rockets and laser beams or something?" Wildcat asked. "I say we fire a broadside across his bow."
"I don't think that's the right terminology, Wildcat," said Batman.
"Hell -- can we shoot the fuckin' car then, okay? yelled Wildcat. "You have no sense of adventure, Batman."
Rain washed onto the large cockpit window of the Batmobile. Batman pulled behind the Mercedes. He activated the Bat-Laser Beam.
"Can't use rockets on this highway," Batman explained. "If I miss, the rocket might hit an innocent driver's vehicle."
The Masked Manhunter tried to get a fix on the Mercedes ahead. "I can't shoot -- I can't even see in this crap," he muttered.
He pressed the button on the dash, and a tongue of orange flame flashed into the rain. The Mercedes swerved, then accelerated.
"I don't think we hit him in a spot to make him stop," Wildcat shouted.
Batman downshifted to build RPMs and then slammed the protesting gearbox back into fourth and jammed the pedal to the floor.
As they closed in on the Mercedes again, the driver's window cranked down, and the barrel of a silenced pistol swung into their direction.
"Watch it -- he's got a gun," Wildcat snapped.
"The Batmobile is bulletproof," Batman replied as he was double-clutching to downshift. The motor roared.
Batman kept the pedal to the floor, working the steering wheel in narrow arcs to enhance traction. The speedometer danced to 110.
Batman gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel even tighter, willing the car forward. This was the lead they had hoped for, the lead to False-Face. This one wasn't from the IRA -- there was too much subtlety, too big a budget.
It was False-Face and the Nazis.
And the lead to False-Face meant hope of finding the remaining ninety-eight canisters of VX nerve gas. But more important to Batman, it increased the chance of finding Catwoman.
The Mercedes was less than a city-block's distance ahead, and the Batmobile was gaining.
"When I get even with him, I'm going to ram him off the side of the road. I'm ramming him with your side of the Batmobile. And when we get out to grab him -- don't kill him," he shouted to Wildcat.
"He's gonna be trying to kill us, Batman."
"He's the only lead we've got back to False-Face."
Batman glanced once at Wildcat. The crimefighter from New York City nodded. "All right, I'll try not to hurt him too badly."
Batman nodded. "Get ready!"
Batman pulled even with the Mercedes and cut the Batmobile's steering wheel hard right, broadsiding the gray car. Metal from the Mercedes screamed and buckled from the impact from the armored Batmobile. The Gotham Goliath felt his bones jar as vibrations from the impact came through the steering wheel. There was no sound from Wildcat. The silenced pistol flashed in the assassin's hand, and Batman rammed the Mercedes again. The pistol fell from the window of the Mercedes as metal wrenched against metal and the driver's side door caved in. The Mercedes swerved hard right and veered onto the shoulder of the road.
Wildcat looked and saw that the windshield of the Mercedes had shattered into thousands of tiny glittering fragments. The German car careered wildly into the guard rail, punching through it, and skidded onto the muddy ground beyond. Batman wrenched at the Batmobile's steering wheel. "Hold on, Wildcat!" he yelled as the car smashed throught he guard rail and lurched violently to a stop in the mud and a few yards from the enemy car.
The driver's door of the Mercedes fell away, and a man climbed out, carrying a crossbow in his hands, the prod cocked. The crossbow quivered for an instant, and Wildcat shouted as he emerged from the Batmobile, "That son of a bitch missed my head by --"
Batman was out the Batmobile when it stopped and cut off his fellow crimefighter's voice to yell at their adversary, "Surrender!" he yelled as rain pelted his face.
Wildcat was on top of his foe in an instant, backhanding the man hard with his left fist. The assassin sprawled against the hood of the Mercedes. "Make it quick, Wildcat," yelled Batman, "We've got police coming up fast."
"Right," Wildcat growled, and he quickly stripped his adversary of two knives.
"He's clean now."
"Now pick him up by his ears, Wildcat, and shake the villian until his ears rip off or he tells us where False-Face is."
"Hey, I like that -- yeah," and Wildcat laughed, the screams of the assassin cutting off the sound of laughter as Wildcat raised the man into the air by his earlobes.
"Where's False-Face?" Wildcat demanded. He could feel the skin of the man's ears beginning to tear. His enemy screamed with the pain.
"Where's False-Face?!" Wildcat repeated.
"All -- all right -- my ears --"
Wildcat threw the man down into the mud like a piece of garbage.
Batman walked over to his would-be assassin lying on the ground. The man was holding his ears, and tears streamed from eyes. "Answer my questions now, or Wildcat will rip your tongue out by the roots. Don't talk to us and you'll never talk again. Now what's your name?"
"The Wolf."
"Did False-Face hire you?"
"Yes, False-Face."
"Where is he?" demanded Batman.
"He was leaving for America. We met in a pub -- he left before I did."
"Where in America?"
"He didn't say -- honestly."
Batman watched as the man's eyes flicked from Batman's face to Wildcat. "What did he look like?" Batman asked.
The man in the mud started to laugh, still holding his ears.
"What did he look like," Batman shouted, "or I let Wildcat rip you apart!"
"A brunette," The Wolf shrugged. "A beautiful brunette with green eyes and a figure that would drive a man insane if it were real."
Batman stepped back from The Wolf.
Wildcat whispered, "Batman -- if it means searching every woman who tries to leave London, I want you to know you can count on me -- I'll work at it day and night."
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.
CHAPTER 2
False-Face sat on a chair in his London hotel room. He made his exit from Florida in the disguise of a horse-faced girl who worked at the British embassy in Washington, leaving her body with its throat slit beneath a railway bridge. He had just been informed of the unsuccessful detonation of the bomb laced with VX nerve gas at Cape Canaveral, and a cold fury flashed in his eyes. Somehow those meddling heroes of the Justice Society of America had managed to foil his plot to devastate the upcoming American space program.
"You say that Batman and some others are here in London, Burns?"
"Yes, Herr False-Face," replied the deputy head of False-Face's London Nazi network.
False-Face considered that, tapping the arm of the chair with his finger. "And that before Batman arrived, there was some sort of assassination attempt on this Wildcat character?" he continued.
"It was in all the papers here, Herr False-Face. Apparently because of Wildcat's close ties with Scotland Yard and British Intelligence. The hit men were labeled as IRA killers. Apparently Wildcat had helped the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad in a counterattack against a group of IRA personnel not long before you acquired the canisters of nerve gas, Herr False-Face. Revenge seems to have been the motive."
"Excellent," False-Face said. "If the IRA was credited with this bungled attempt on Wildcat, then when our attempt is successful, perhaps they'll get credit for that, too. That suits my purpose well. Very well," and he leaned back in the chair.
He was fatigued, but he had to move on immediately. At the far side of the room was the suitcase that contained his next identity. Another woman, this time a German. She would get him to the United States. Once there, a Catholic priest. And then one more disguise and it would be over, through. He wondered what it would be like to see his own face every day, day in, day out. In preparation for the events soon to come he had not lived with his own face for six years. He was always someone else, smoking his or her cigarettes or cigars, wearing his or her clothing, copying his or her voice, living his or her life to carry out his own.
He abandoned his own voice, assuming the lilting Bavarian alto of the manufactured identity of the German woman. "Herr Burns, when will the assassination team be ready to see me?"
***
Selina Kyle looked into the mirror and saw Sister Angelica staring back at her. The white-peaked black veil all but concealed her hair, and not a bit of makeup powdered her face. She stepped away from the mirror, looking down at herself. The black habit extended to just to the top of her low-heeled black shoes. She picked up the wireframe glasses and put them on. They had belonged to a Sister who was dead now, and they slightly distorted her vision. The effect on her sight was unnerving to her, but not terribly dramatic. She looked again in the mirror.
The effect on her appearance was startling.
The glasses somehow obscured the greeness of her eyes and reshaped her face -- much like what her cowl did on her Catwoman costume.
"Maybe we can talk you into this on a full-time basis -- you make a good- looking nun."
Selina Kyle turned around, removing the glasses. It was Sister Albert. "Not my style, Sister." She smiled.
"Are you ready? To go to the school, I mean?"
Selina Kyle nodded. "I'm little nervous without any weapons."
"I'll fix that. Come with me," and Sister Albert started down the hall toward a wooden door at the far end, adding, "There weren't enough Catholics in town here to justify a priest on a full-time basis, but with us being involved in the school we got to stay. With no priest, well, this little room means a lot more to us." She opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on a light. Selina followed her.
It was a small chapel. Three stained-glass panels above the altar diffused a blue light over the three pews on each side of the center aisle. Sister Albert dipped her fingers in a font of holy water and made the Sign of the Cross.
Sister Catherine entered the chapel and repeated the elder nun's gestures.
"We're going to pray," Sister Albert said abruptly. "That those Nazis don't use their nerve gas, that the children don't get hurt, that no one gets killed, that the good guys win -- and we'll even pray for you. How about that?"
Selina ran her tongue over her lips -- they felt odd without lipstick. She nodded, stumbling over the word, "Yes."
The two sisters seemed to be waiting for her beside the font.
Selina Kyle dipped her fingers into the water. It had been a long time, such a long time, she was almost embarrassed doing it.
***
Batman looked up and across the room at Wildcat, standing beside the bar. Colonel Sam Flagg, rubbing his hands across his rugged face, evidently very tired, sat on a stool at the end of the bar opposite from Wildcat. The CIA man was content to let the costumed heroes do the rough stuff during the course of this little raid of a London pub. Dr Mid-Nite was speaking to a potential informant. Batman listened to the questioning.
Mid-Nite threw the worthless informant to the floor and looked up to his three companions. "These blasted thugs don't know anything. Let's go."
While the American group was moving toward the door of the pub, Dr Mid-Nite said, "It's apparent that somehow or other, our nemisis False-Face has once again evaded the forces of justice. He is probably either in Germany or the United States, perhaps here in London again. And doubtless his disguise is impeccable and we will be hard pressed to penetrate it."
"What you're saying," Wildcat began, "is that there's nothing we can do to stop False-Face until he makes his next move."
"Then just react like we have been," Colonel Flagg added.
Speaking to no one in particular, Batman said, "I don't have any alternatives, but that's just what we can't do. Take those dastardly villians who jumped Wildcat. Granted they were IRA and probably it was a revenge motive for the affair at Marchand's some months back when he halped nail their guy O'Malley. But it could have just as easily been someone False-Face sent. What I'm saying is that False-Face may be looking at us the same way we're looking at him. Look what he did when he tried to kill Mid-Nite, here, while he was in his civilian identity."
"Quite," said a mollified Dr Mid-Nite as his face flushed.
"Anyway, False-Face isn't above knocking off the competition," Batman continued. "And if we keep waiting for him, he's going to come up with an operation we can't storm our way into and stop. I figure he's going to go for the big one this time. He's proved he will set off a bomb laced with the VX nerve gas twice and that he's capable of getting a device into position anywhere he wants it. He's netted one detonation out of it. Thanks to Green Lantern, it went off harmlessly in space. So far, we've only recovered one of the one hundred stolen VX nerve gas canisters. But I don't think that makes us even. He's way ahead of the game because he knows his next move and we don't. He probably knows our next move almost as soon as we determine what it is. The whole deal on that island off Crete was to draw our attention, lull us into assuming we'd stopped his plans temporarily. And he's got Catwoman, probably as an ace against me if he needs it. We've got to find Catwoman. She's the key. If we find her, we've got a pipeline into at least part of his operation. I don't care how we nail False-Face -- I just want to nail his ass to the wall and use it for a damn dartboard with him still wearing it."
He felt better for saying it all, but Batman really wasn't sure if he'd said anything besides the obvious. He wondered whether his concern for Catwoman overshadowed his reason.
Dr Mid-Nite spoke after a long pause. "Even as we talk, Diana is putting together a dossier on False-Face of every intelligence agency to which we have access. I have contacted my sources, asking them to analyze the data as it is available, to construct a composite profile -- both physical and psychological -- containing every known detail on False-Face. We are also gathering data on all known associates of False-Face, all known Nazi sympathizers and other pro-Nazi, right-wing elements."
"It's going to be an awful big dossier," Flagg offered.
"Yes," Dr Mid-Nite allowed. "But the fact remains, it is our most vital tool against False-Face. Hourman is still recovering in a hospital bed in Iraklion. He hopes to be back in the U.S. soon. We are also back-checking those spurious identities that we know of -- his disguise as the German air hostess Johanna, for example -- looking for any factual basis there might be for such identities. I doubt he attended a training school for airline hostesses, so it is either the identity of a woman he murdered and replaced, or some other ruse was used -- perhaps an identity made of whole cloth but substantiated by fraudulent records. There may be some clues to his real appearance in this regard."
"Short-lived identities like the Gateway City policeman he posed as when they tried the detonation there," Batman injected, "are probably dead ends."
"Wouldn't it be marvelous if people had the brains to realize that Hitler was a whacko and didn't want to strut around and pretend to be Nazis -- geez. What a bunch of losers," Wildcat observed.
Batman shrugged. "Probably a lot of people were disappointed when Genghis Khan died -- what can I say?"
"So far," Colonel Flagg noted thoughtfully, "it appears we have no bizzare rumblings, nothing to indicate False-Face has commenced an operation."
"It's clear to me," Batman began, "that all of this is part of one operation, just various phases, all building up to one thing. And if I'm right and False-Face's achieved his purpose of demonstrating he'll use the weapons, then he's ready for the final stage. It could be anything, but it has to be some form of blackmail. He's not bent on suicide. The way he fights -- using his wits to stay alive and always covering his ass with an escape route -- proves that. He doesn't want to turn the earth into an uninhabitable place. He wants to use the VX in order to get his way, and he wants the world to know that he will use the gas if he doesn't."
"But what could his goal be, Batman?" asked Dr Mid-Nite. "You know him best."
Batman looked at the Master of Darkness. "False-Face will let us know. Bank on it."
***
The man known only as the The Wolf studied his reflection in the rearview mirror of the Mercedes automobile. A fine face, he thought, strong chin, patrician nose, blue eyes that had set many a heart racing. His close- cropped blond hair was so light that the premature gray that salted it hardly showed at all. He adjusted the knot of the black silk tie he wore.
Through the Mercedes windshield he could watch the outside of the pub and watch the positions of his other men. It was only a matter of time.
He glanced at the khaki raincoat beside him on the front passenger seat. Beneath it was the weapon with which he intended to assassinate Batman, just as False-Face's people had instructed and paid him to do.
He flicked back the raincoat for an instant. The prod was precocked, with the custom-fabricated, three-bladed hunting bolt in the flyway. A flick of the safety to the off position and a gentle touch of the trigger was all that would be required. At a range of twenty-five yards, the bolt would penetrate Batman's neck from the left side and probably sever the spinal column and rupture the carotid artery on the right.
No noise, no fuss.
The Wolf liked that.
There was always the chance of a miss, of course. A really strong and sudden gust of wind or a rough previous evening giving one a shaky hand or jerky trigger finger. But it was a very calm night, with a light mist falling, so light as to be hardly noticeable, and he'd had a lovely relaxing evening the night before and had not overindulged -- in anything.
Several clandestine services used the crossbow. The Wolf mentally ticked off the times he used it -- In West Berlin twice, in Paris once, in Naples once, in Monaco once, in Tel Aviv twice.
He was satisfied. He waited. The American crimefighter Batman would come.
In the event things did go sour, underneath his tweed sport coat was a ..22- caliber semiautomatic with a silencer.
Violence, to be truly effective, The Wolf had always thought, should be subtle and understated.
He waited.
***
Dr Mid-Nite started through the double glass doors, leading out of the London pub.
Colonel Flagg followed. "Looks like more of that damn drizzle," he observed.
Batman shrugged as he came out next. It was colder than it had been, and the night sky was weeping.
Dr Mid-Nite adjusted the special goggles that he wore over his eyes. His red tunic was cloaked by a long green cape. "Not a bad evening."
Batman just looked at him. It was evident that a man who couldn't see idea of "not a bad evening" and anyone else's idea of the same night were totally different.
"That spook guy in your group said that he would transport us back to the United States very early tomorrow?" Colonel Flagg asked, huddled in his typical spy trench coat.
"Don't let him hear you calling him that, Colonel," Wildcat said from behind. "The Spectre doesn't appreciate being called 'Spooky.'"
"Indeed," Batman said. "But because of his great powers, he was able to transport us and the Batmobile, here, to London, in the blink of an eye."
"When this is all over, I'm going to write one hell of a report for the CIA," Flagg assured Batman.
Wildcat looked at Flagg and said, "Like they'll believe you."
The group was headed for another pub that was said to be frequented by Nazi sympathizers in London.
Across the street, Batman noticed a new Mercedes. It was a down-sized four- door that topped 115 miles per hour. It would look nice in the garage in Wayne Manor, he thought.
Batman reached out his left hand and said, "What do you think of that, Wildcat?"
"What? The Mercedes?"
"Yes, what do you think of it? Not that gray color but maybe in black?"
He watched Wildcat's eyes as the man appraised the car. "Why not one of the little sportsters? But I think you're right, it would look better in black."
"Yeah, but I bet Batman thinks everything looks better in black," Flagg laughed.
Batman's lip twitched. "Watch it, Colonel, or I might start liking you. Come on, we're wet already -- let's take a look at the car." The Caped Crusader wanted to do anything that would get his mind away from the plight of Catwoman -- not knowing the exact nature of her situation, he let his imagination play games that he didn't like.
"It's raining -- or doesn't anybody care?" Wildcat asked. Batman shot him a scowl and started across the street. Dr Mid-Nite was beside him and Flagg fell into step.
There had appeared to be no one in the car from across the street. And through the increasing heavy rain, Batman couldn't even see through the dark glass of the broad flat windshield.
Wildcat was saying something and Batman turned around. "I didn't catch what you said."
"I think there's somebody in the car, Batman. I saw something moving. This is embarrassing."
Dr Mid-Nite looked at the Mercedes more closely. He hadn't been paying any attention to the interior. He was about five yards from where he stood on the curb opposite the pub.
The rain was coming down pretty hard. Mid-Nite started toward the car. "I don't see -- Holy shit!"
Dr Mid-Nite threw himself left away from the car. Batman threw himself toward the right, across the sidewalk toward a shop window. "Look out!" he shouted.
He could see the window being cranked down, then a twang and a whoosh. A plate-glass window shattered above his head. He was soaked now, rolling out of a puddle of standing water.
The Mercedes was already in motion, screeching away from the curb.
Sudden bursts of gunfire hammered toward Batman from the opposite side of the street. As the Dark Knight from Gotham City rolled and then pushed himself up, his eyes took in the shattered store window and the mannequin of a woman in an expensively tailored pink suit. The mannequin was pinned to a round pillar in the interior side of the window, a crossbow bolt through the neck. He swallowed hard.
Wildcat was on the move. Dr Mid-Nite reached to his utility belt and pulled out one of his patented Blackout Bombs. Colonel Flagg held a gleaming snub- nosed revolver in his right fist and was running for cover.
There were more sounds of glass exploding. Across the street a figure broke and ran -- a man wearing a knit cap and a blue rain jacket and carrying a pistol with a long slide. The adversary turned and fired. The gun made no noticeable sound. Wildcat whipped a Shuriken fighting star at the man, and the knit cap spun into the air in pain with the weapon stuck firmly in his right forearm.
Wildcat was crouched behind an off-white Volvo. He saw two men near the corner of the pub on the far side of the street.
One of the men made a run for it, firing a silenced pistol as he went. Wildcat began running toward them in a zig-zag pattern in an effort to keep from being shot. The gunman's weapon boomed once, then once again, and he started to become frustrated by his inability to hit the moving target that was coming closer and closer with each passing second.
Then, suddenly, everything went black. The gunman could no longer see. This was courtesy of Dr Mid-Nite's Blackout Bomb. A moment later, Wildcat hammered his body into the would-be assassin and slammed him through a plate-glass window.
The second man, also unable to see, but who certainly heard the breaking glass, raised a small submachine gun, "Get down, Wildcat!" Dr Mid-Nite shouted.
Dr Mid-Nite's only real power was the ability to see in the dark. He could clearly see the machine gunner and the man's body reeled from the punch from the Master of Darkness. Then his knees buckled, and the sub gun danced bullets off the pavement at his feet as he sagged like a heap of rags.
Batman ran to join Flagg at the far end of the street, where the CIA officer had run another gunner to earth. He wheeled as he heard the whine of an accelerating motor behind him. The gray Mercedes roared toward him, jumping the curb. The Masked Manhunter realized in an instant that the car had boxed him in. "Batman!" It was Wildcat shouting. The car raced forward.
In the split second before life became death, Batman hurtled his body toward the window of a leather-goods shop behind him, hunching his shoulders, trying to tuck-roll in midair. His arms shielded his face and head as the glass shattered around him.
The Mercedes glanced off the front of the shop and careered wildly over the curve and back into the street. The wheels spun madly on the wet pavement as the car picked up speed and slipped into the night.
As Batman pulled himself up, shards of razor-edged glass fell from his cape and crunched under his boots.
Dr Mid-Nite was running up to him. "Batman," he shouted, "you're --"
"I'm all right," Batman said. "That dastardly villian, I'll thrash him brutally."
"Hey, Batman!" It was Wildcat, and the Gotham Avenger stepped out of the display window, gingerly brushing the glass off his costume. "Let's chase him in the Batmobile!"
Batman felt his jaw set. The Mercedes hadn't had time to get too far ahead. "Let's go, Wildcat!" and Batman, glass still falling from his costume, water streaming down his face, ran toward the Batmobile.
***
Batman jumped into the eleven-year-old Batmobile. Wildcat got into the passenger seat. Pushing a button, the Caped Crusader started the motor and put the vehicle in drive.
A white police car with a blue flasher was coming up fast behind him, and Batman layed out a screech of rubber as he accelerated. Turning several blocks ahead he could see a gray Mercedes -- he hoped it was the same one.
Upshifting into third gear, the speedometer read nearly fifty as he cut through a red light.
Batman whipped the wheel hard to the left, barely avoiding a double-decker bus. He realized he was driving on the wrong side of the street. "This is England, remember!" Wildcat shouted.
Batman shrugged, double-clutching to downshift, taking the same right the Mercedes had taken. He was leaving Marylebone High Street and a sign read Hammersmith Flyover.
"What the hell's a 'flyover,' anyway?" Wildcat shouted.
"Like an expressway. They just talk funny over here. Hang on." Batman upshifted through third and into fourth, cutting hard right into what he hoped was the fast lane. The Mercedes was nowhere in sight.
"He could have gotten off at one of those exits," Wildcat said, his hands gripping the dash.
"What would you do, Wildcat, if you had just botched an assassination?"
"How the hell should I know," Wildcat shouted. The windshield wipers thwacked at high speed, trying to clear the sheets of falling rain. "I never tried to assassinate anybody."
"You'd get out of town as fast as you could. Read that sign --"
Wildcat read out the sign for Chadwick, and Batman noted they were heading into the West Country. The speedometer needle hovered around one hundred as the Dark Knight streaked his way through the slower-moving traffic around him.
"You know, Batman, if you ever have to stop this thing suddenly, we're splat all over the road," said Wildcat.
Batman only nodded as he dodged a medium-sized truck. He double clutched and downshifted, and the needle redlined on the tachometer as he threaded the space between two more trucks. Ahead of them, he could see the Mercedes.
"Whoever the hell that guy is who tried killing us just never planned on us walking across the street to look at his pretty car," Batman reflected.
"I'll remember that if I ever want to assassinate somebody," Wildcat laughed. "Always use a boring-looking car."
The speedometer bounced at a 105, and the Batmobile was hydroplaning. If Batman tried lowering his speed before they hit drier pavement, he'd lose control of the car. His hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly.
The Mercedes was growing ahead of them. "He hasn't made us yet," Wildcat shouted
"He's going to, real quick," Batman shot back.
Batman slowed his speed to seventy, matching the Mercedes, and fell into position just to its right and half a car length back.
"Doesn't this car of yours have weapons like rockets and laser beams or something?" Wildcat asked. "I say we fire a broadside across his bow."
"I don't think that's the right terminology, Wildcat," said Batman.
"Hell -- can we shoot the fuckin' car then, okay? yelled Wildcat. "You have no sense of adventure, Batman."
Rain washed onto the large cockpit window of the Batmobile. Batman pulled behind the Mercedes. He activated the Bat-Laser Beam.
"Can't use rockets on this highway," Batman explained. "If I miss, the rocket might hit an innocent driver's vehicle."
The Masked Manhunter tried to get a fix on the Mercedes ahead. "I can't shoot -- I can't even see in this crap," he muttered.
He pressed the button on the dash, and a tongue of orange flame flashed into the rain. The Mercedes swerved, then accelerated.
"I don't think we hit him in a spot to make him stop," Wildcat shouted.
Batman downshifted to build RPMs and then slammed the protesting gearbox back into fourth and jammed the pedal to the floor.
As they closed in on the Mercedes again, the driver's window cranked down, and the barrel of a silenced pistol swung into their direction.
"Watch it -- he's got a gun," Wildcat snapped.
"The Batmobile is bulletproof," Batman replied as he was double-clutching to downshift. The motor roared.
Batman kept the pedal to the floor, working the steering wheel in narrow arcs to enhance traction. The speedometer danced to 110.
Batman gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel even tighter, willing the car forward. This was the lead they had hoped for, the lead to False-Face. This one wasn't from the IRA -- there was too much subtlety, too big a budget.
It was False-Face and the Nazis.
And the lead to False-Face meant hope of finding the remaining ninety-eight canisters of VX nerve gas. But more important to Batman, it increased the chance of finding Catwoman.
The Mercedes was less than a city-block's distance ahead, and the Batmobile was gaining.
"When I get even with him, I'm going to ram him off the side of the road. I'm ramming him with your side of the Batmobile. And when we get out to grab him -- don't kill him," he shouted to Wildcat.
"He's gonna be trying to kill us, Batman."
"He's the only lead we've got back to False-Face."
Batman glanced once at Wildcat. The crimefighter from New York City nodded. "All right, I'll try not to hurt him too badly."
Batman nodded. "Get ready!"
Batman pulled even with the Mercedes and cut the Batmobile's steering wheel hard right, broadsiding the gray car. Metal from the Mercedes screamed and buckled from the impact from the armored Batmobile. The Gotham Goliath felt his bones jar as vibrations from the impact came through the steering wheel. There was no sound from Wildcat. The silenced pistol flashed in the assassin's hand, and Batman rammed the Mercedes again. The pistol fell from the window of the Mercedes as metal wrenched against metal and the driver's side door caved in. The Mercedes swerved hard right and veered onto the shoulder of the road.
Wildcat looked and saw that the windshield of the Mercedes had shattered into thousands of tiny glittering fragments. The German car careered wildly into the guard rail, punching through it, and skidded onto the muddy ground beyond. Batman wrenched at the Batmobile's steering wheel. "Hold on, Wildcat!" he yelled as the car smashed throught he guard rail and lurched violently to a stop in the mud and a few yards from the enemy car.
The driver's door of the Mercedes fell away, and a man climbed out, carrying a crossbow in his hands, the prod cocked. The crossbow quivered for an instant, and Wildcat shouted as he emerged from the Batmobile, "That son of a bitch missed my head by --"
Batman was out the Batmobile when it stopped and cut off his fellow crimefighter's voice to yell at their adversary, "Surrender!" he yelled as rain pelted his face.
Wildcat was on top of his foe in an instant, backhanding the man hard with his left fist. The assassin sprawled against the hood of the Mercedes. "Make it quick, Wildcat," yelled Batman, "We've got police coming up fast."
"Right," Wildcat growled, and he quickly stripped his adversary of two knives.
"He's clean now."
"Now pick him up by his ears, Wildcat, and shake the villian until his ears rip off or he tells us where False-Face is."
"Hey, I like that -- yeah," and Wildcat laughed, the screams of the assassin cutting off the sound of laughter as Wildcat raised the man into the air by his earlobes.
"Where's False-Face?" Wildcat demanded. He could feel the skin of the man's ears beginning to tear. His enemy screamed with the pain.
"Where's False-Face?!" Wildcat repeated.
"All -- all right -- my ears --"
Wildcat threw the man down into the mud like a piece of garbage.
Batman walked over to his would-be assassin lying on the ground. The man was holding his ears, and tears streamed from eyes. "Answer my questions now, or Wildcat will rip your tongue out by the roots. Don't talk to us and you'll never talk again. Now what's your name?"
"The Wolf."
"Did False-Face hire you?"
"Yes, False-Face."
"Where is he?" demanded Batman.
"He was leaving for America. We met in a pub -- he left before I did."
"Where in America?"
"He didn't say -- honestly."
Batman watched as the man's eyes flicked from Batman's face to Wildcat. "What did he look like?" Batman asked.
The man in the mud started to laugh, still holding his ears.
"What did he look like," Batman shouted, "or I let Wildcat rip you apart!"
"A brunette," The Wolf shrugged. "A beautiful brunette with green eyes and a figure that would drive a man insane if it were real."
Batman stepped back from The Wolf.
Wildcat whispered, "Batman -- if it means searching every woman who tries to leave London, I want you to know you can count on me -- I'll work at it day and night."
To be continued ...
