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 4
Colonel Sam Flagg stood amid the din of New York's bustling Idlewood Airport and read aloud from a note that had just been handed to him by a U.S. Air Force lieutenant. Beside him, Batman could feel the tension in the government officer's voice. The near miss in London had put a strain on everyone. After The Spectre had transported the group back to New York, the heroes and Flagg were going to go back to their respective headquarters via commercial flight and the Batplane. Wildcat and Dr Mid-Nite made their homes in New York.
"At exactly noon today central daylight time, a group of armed Nazis holding the entire town of Reddington, Illinois, hostage with a canister of VX nerve gas forced the President of the United States to surrender to them. The severed head of a presidential aide named Kenny O'Brien was delivered in a box to the Illinois State Police with a note pinned to his cheek spelling the whole thing out. I'm to report to Reddington immediately."
"False-Face --" It was Wildcat who spoke.
"God help us," Dr Mid-Nite murmured.
Batman felt his palms sweating. "We're going with you, Colonel, and the only way you can stop us is to shoot us. I know False-Face better than anybody."
Flagg nodded, "Yeah, okay," and the four broke into a run toward the Batplane.
Batman could feel that False-Face was poised for the final strike, and he knew he would have to defeat him. The stakes were high, and there could be only one survivor.
***
"Only one member of the cabinet was unable to make it, Mr Vice-President."
The vice-president of the United States, a big, well-connected, Texan, stood behind the podium where, during a normal joint session of Congress, the President of the United States would stand. The whispered voice belongd to one of his aides, Dan Carlysle.
"Who couldn't attend, Danny?"
"The secretary of agriculture, sir, but his under secretary, Dr Horn, is here in his place. The secretary was stricken with a mild case of food poisoning, but his doctors at Bethesda say he's coming along well and we can apprise him of any information he might need."
"Excellent." The vice-president nodded, then looked away from the bespectacled, slightly built man. Beside him sat the Speaker of the House of Representatives. "Mr Speaker, are we ready?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir, we are ready."
"I'd like to suggest that after a brief introduction on your part, we get to the matter at hand as quickly as possible."
"Agreed, Mr Vice-President." The white-haired man nodded gravely.
In the galleries looking down on the House, the needed functionaries sat, filling the area normally reserved for family and invited guests of the government.
Not a single member of either House was absent.
For an instant, the vice-president had the disquieting thought that with the exception of the President himself, whose fate this meeting concerned, the entire United States government -- legislative, executive and judicial branches -- was present in one room.
The Speaker of the House began. "In this trying period, there is no handily available precedent to sight as to the function of the commander-in-chief. For the sake of expediency, I think we should temporarily consider the President as incapable of exercising his office due to the circumstances of his captivity. In his stead, then, I present to you the vice-president of the United States."
Uncomfortably the vice-president took the rostrum on the intermediary dais. In a thick southern drawl, he began: "Mr Speaker, I'll forego the usual lengthy introductions. I welcome y'all here. We meet in an hour of grave crisis. A crisis of which most of you here this evenin' have some awareness. I'll catalog the events. Sometime within the past several days, the town of Reddington, Illinois, was taken over by Nazis sympathetic to cause of the internationally known murderer and bomber known only as 'False- Face.' No one knows False-Face's real face or identity. At noon today, while the President and his motorcade made a scheduled stop in Reddington, these neo-Nazis, possibly under the leadership of False-Face personally, seized the President, his Secret Service detail and other personnel. The exact circumstances of the seizure are as yet unclear, but there is reportedly a bomb laced with VX nerve gas planted in the grammer school in the town of Reddington. There is ample reason to accept the validity of this claim, since False-Face recently perpetrated the theft of one hundred canisters of the VX nerve gas --" the vice-president stopped speaking, as shouts and cries rose from the floor. Behind him he could hear the Speaker's gavel rapping.
The vice-president shouted into the microphone, "Various members of the Congress were alerted to this occurrence, but for security reasons the information was not broadly disseminated. But all this can be discussed later. Please," he shouted.
It was several minutes before the volume of protest had died down and he could resume. "We are wastin' valuable time ... There have been no ransom demands, nothin'. The circumstances of the President's captivity and the mention of the nerve gas were part of a note pinned to the cheek of Kenny O'Brien, one of the President's aides. His head was delivered in a box to an Illinois State Police facility."
The commotion began again, and the Speaker hammered a message of order into the chaos with his gavel.
"Please," shouted the vice-president, "Y'all know what we know. There have been no demands, just the simple statement that if there is any attempt to rescue the President, the bomb will be detonated, spreading the nerve gas all through the town."
There were cries again, louder, and some of the members of Congress rose to their feet. The vice-president shouted into the microphone, "There is one other vital piece of information before we begin deliberation. The President's life and the lives of the nearly one thousand people livin' in Reddington are at stake. The surroundin' area has been evacuated, and select National Guard units and the Eighty-second Airborne have been moved in."
The commotion subsided again, as did the pounding of the Speaker's gavel.
The vice-president sipped at a glass of water on the rostrum, then continued. "With the President, of course, was the Air Force sergeant who carries the satchel known as 'the football.' What this means is that a group of Nazis has possession of the codes and the mechanism by which a full-scale nuclear launch sequence could begin against the Soviet Union."
He had expected shouting and there was none. He exhaled hard. He looked into the sea of faces that appeared in front of him. The wrath he had seen in some of them was suddenly gone. "We are at Defcon Two now," he continued, "so that in the event False-Face and his men should be able to force the President to use the code sequences, we'll be ready. It is impossible in so short a time to reprogram the mass launch sequences without putting the entire system off line and leaving ourselves vulnerable to an attack by the Soviet Union to which we could not respond."
The saddest faces, the vice-president of the United States thought, were those of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the representatives of the CIA, and all the three and four-letter-designated agencies.
The words spilled from him. "God help us all."
***
Selina Kyle sat with the sleeping child on her lap. Her fingers hurt from working the rosary beads, done half to perpetrate the lie that she was a Catholic nun and half out of being ... a little nervous. She hated to admit that of herself. But she was vastly outnumbered and didn't have any rooftops to fade into in the little town of Reddington.
Her head ached from the eye strain caused by wearing the glasses that were a part of her disguise, and for the past twenty minutes she had sat with her eyes closed on a straight-back chair in the prisoner interrogation room of the town jail.
A man armed with a machine gun stood outside the room, and down the hall were the two cells, that now held the President of the United States and his Secret Service protective detail. The Secret Service agents were handcuffed to the bars of their cells.
The sound of the door opening brought her back to an alert state of mind. The man who posed as the police chief strode into the room, his left arm still in the sling. "Sister Angelica, is it?"
"Yes." Selina Kyle nodded.
"And you are visiting here from another convent?"
"Yes, I am."
"You are not Selina Kyle, the famous jewel thief known better as The Catwoman?"
Selina Kyle hoped her eyes didn't betray her. "No -- do I look like a jewel thief?"
"You are a very pretty woman under that --" and he gestured toward her habit.
"I would have hoped that despite the evil thing you are doing, you would at least be a gentleman," Selina told him matter-of-factly.
"I have no designs on you -- unless you wish me to."
He was German and the English was very good, she noted. "I have no wish for this," she answered, then closed her eyes and picked up the rosary beads, which rested against her thighs.
"The little girl," he continued, "is perhaps hungry. You are hungry?"
She opened her eyes again. She wasn't hungry. She dropped the rosary beads to her skirt. "Yes, I'm hungry. At least I think I am. The little girl -- I don't know."
"You can get out of this room for a time, then. We also commandeered a hamburger stand by the highway, and they've kindly catered for us," and he laughed. "The manager was very helpful when we threatened to execute his entire staff unless they brought us food."
"You are an animal," she said, picking up the beads.
"I serve the great cause of the new order, Sister Angelica. Were I the animal you think I am, the child's head would have been sent to the state police post, not the head of the President's aide. Come and eat -- Sister."
Selina Kyle nodded, whispering to the child, "Wake up, darling, come on. We're going to have something to eat. Come on, please," and the little girl began to stir.
She stretched and rubbed her eyes and then looked at Selina, saying, "Hamburgers?"
Selina, despite herself, smiled. "Yes, yes. Come on."
The little girl didn't seem fully awake, and her own legs stiff, Selina Kyle rose from the chair with the little girl in her arms. She heard the soft clicking of the rosary beads as they moved against her clothes, punctuating the child's breathing.
***
Batman walked beside Colonel Flagg. Flagg looked mildly out of place in a suit covered by a raincoat. But so did the three costumed crimefighters, who were all wearing masks. Around them, as they crossed from the road to the center of the conclave, were red and green-bereted, fatigue-clad men carrying M-1s and other assorted military equipment, festooned with pistols and fragmentation grenades. In the distance, the Caped Crusader saw a team with a flamethrower, and behind them a couple of Sherman tanks. Helicopter rotor blades idled lazily, contrasting sharply with the otherwise frantic pace of the hastily put together command post.
Flagg buttonholed a second lieutenant, a National Guardsman, distinguishable by his standard headgear. "Lieutenant, we're looking for General Pauley."
"In that tent, sir, at the center," the lieutenant responded, then called out to a man passing him, "Corporal Brown, take these gentlemen to the general's tent."
"Yes, sir," the corporal returned. "If you gentlemen would follow me, please."
The Masked Manhunter caught the corporal eyeing him, and said as they walked by, "I'm called Batman."
"Thank you, sir, I was wondering."
Batman nodded.
Dr Mid-Nite remembered to himself that he hated meeting generals -- especially ones he'd met before. Creighton Pauley was one of these.
"Here you are, gentlemen," and the corporal smiled as they stopped before a large, dark-brown tent.
The corporal dismissed himself, and Flagg poked his head through the tent flap.
Dr Mid-Nite groaned as he followed the CIA officer and held the tent flap for Batman and Wildcat, who followed after him.
"I hate meeting brass!" Wildcat complained.
"You think you hate it. I know this guy!" Mid-Nite whispered hoarsely.
"Yeah, but you deal with these kind of people all the time. You should be used to it."
Batman said nothing as he crossed the tent floor in Flagg's wake. He could already see the skinhead haircut, the beer belly in the starched creased fatigues at the far end. On the general's hip was a regulation officer's gunbelt for the .45.
Colonel Flagg stopped at the wall of plastic-covered maps before which General Pauley stood. Flagg cleared his throat. Dr Mid-Nite smiled. Pauley knew they were there but was making them sweat. Dr Mid-Nite shrugged, and said something that was somewhat out of character for him, "Hey, skindome -- remember me?"
Flagg's head snapped around. Wildcat laughed in spite of the situation when he saw Flagg's eyes -- white rimmed and wide.
General Pauley's voice was the next voice Batman heard. "I would have figured only a costumed freak would be insubordinate enough to call me that, Mid-Nite. Thought I'd never see you, again."
"You know what they say about bad pennies. I never thought I was going to see you again, either."
Flagg cleared his throat again.
"You got a cough, son -- want some water?" snorted Pauley.
"No, sir -- I mean, General. I'm Sam Flagg, with the CIA. Here are my credentials," and Flagg started digging for his identification case.
"Never mind that," Pauley barked. "If you weren't who you say you are you would never have gotten into the camp here. Who are these other two costumed characters?"
Wildcat didn't say a word. Batman answered. "I'm Batman, General Pauley, and this is Wildcat."
"You guys sure do dress funny. Love the cape, Bat-Man," Pauley said with a sneer.
"These gentlemen are with me," Colonel Flagg interceded. "They represent a group of costumed crimefighters called the Justice Society of America, made up of a number of mystery men with remarkable powers. They've been in on this nerve gas theft since the beginning, and I'm stuck with them since they know more about False-Face than anybody. They stopped False-Face's attempt to detonate a bomb laced with VX in Gateway City and thwarted a second attempt to destroy NASA space headquarters in Cape Canaveral, although the device did detonate in space."
"What's a matter with you costumed creeps, can't find and defeat one guy -- this False-Face character?"
Batman felt his left eyebrow raise underneath the cowl, but he answered calmly, "No, we figured it was more important to make sure that the bombs laced with the nerve gas didn't go off around people before we nabbed the suspect. Sorry you disapprove."
"You don't like me do you, Bat-Man?" Pauley's tone was bullying.
"You read other people's feelings well," Batman replied.
"Bullshit. Hell --"
Dr Mid-Nite interrupted. "I believe we have more important concerns than personal animosities, General Pauley. But, of course, that's only the opinion of a costumed creep."
"It's great the way people just instantly warm to you, isn't it, General?" Wildcat said.
Pauley didn't answer but, after a moment, pointed a brass-tipped swagger stick at the nearest wall map. "All right -- this is Reddington. I've got the entire town ringed, got helicopters in the air over the ring to keep anyone from getting in or out. I was instructed to wait until proper civilian authorities arrived. So what's the scam, Flagg?" Pauley asked, looking at Flagg and jabbing his index finger toward him.
"There's been no further word from the Nazis holding the President?" Flagg began.
"If there had been, fella, I would have mentioned it real quick," Pauley grunted.
"I see," said Flagg. "Well --"
Batman pushed between the two men to study the map. "Let's cut the crap here. Where's the school where they supposedly have the nerve gas canister?"
Pauley shouldered over beside him. "Right there, near the edge of town."
"Your men are how far out?"
"Two miles -- plenty visible to the Nazis."
Batman looked back at the map. "Can they be contacted?"
"Negative on that."
"Not good," Batman muttered, trying to think.
"I'll go to the town, contact them personally," Dr Mid-Nite volunteered.
Batman shook his head, "We'd be just giving them another hostage."
"Maybe a bunch of JSA members could --" Wildcat started.
"Shut up, Pussycat," Pauley snarled to Wildcat.
Wildcat started to step toward the general, but Batman caught his attention, "A raid? I don't think so. We don't know the layout well enough. And we don't have any idea how many of them there are or just exactly where they're holding the President. Even if we did, a lot of innocent people could be killed in the process."
"Then what can we do?" Colonel Flagg asked.
"Yeah, are you some kind of tactical genius, Bat-Man? What can we do?" Pauley mocked.
"You're telling everybody in the area this some kind of exercise, right?" Batman asked.
Pauley only nodded.
"All right, you've got state police by the road. Have them hunt us down some people who are familiar with Reddington, people who went to that school, so we can figure out where the nerve gas might be kept."
"What the hell is going on -- and who the fuck put you in charge, caped creep?" Pauley snapped.
Colonel Flagg cleared his throat. "False-Face has never been stopped. Except by one man -- this man. I hate his guts, too, same as you, General. But I also realize Batman's the only hope we've got against this fiend. I'm in charge, right?"
Pauley hesitated, then nodded, "My orders read that."
"Then you listen to him." Flagg's voice was edged with something final, deliberate.
Batman looked at Colonel Flagg and nodded.
"Just get the damn President out of there alive, Batman," Flagg said. "Get him out before False-Face decides to use the 'football' the President carries to start World War III."
Batman lowered his voice as he looked at the men who were facing him. He merely informed them, "I got a plan."
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 4
Colonel Sam Flagg stood amid the din of New York's bustling Idlewood Airport and read aloud from a note that had just been handed to him by a U.S. Air Force lieutenant. Beside him, Batman could feel the tension in the government officer's voice. The near miss in London had put a strain on everyone. After The Spectre had transported the group back to New York, the heroes and Flagg were going to go back to their respective headquarters via commercial flight and the Batplane. Wildcat and Dr Mid-Nite made their homes in New York.
"At exactly noon today central daylight time, a group of armed Nazis holding the entire town of Reddington, Illinois, hostage with a canister of VX nerve gas forced the President of the United States to surrender to them. The severed head of a presidential aide named Kenny O'Brien was delivered in a box to the Illinois State Police with a note pinned to his cheek spelling the whole thing out. I'm to report to Reddington immediately."
"False-Face --" It was Wildcat who spoke.
"God help us," Dr Mid-Nite murmured.
Batman felt his palms sweating. "We're going with you, Colonel, and the only way you can stop us is to shoot us. I know False-Face better than anybody."
Flagg nodded, "Yeah, okay," and the four broke into a run toward the Batplane.
Batman could feel that False-Face was poised for the final strike, and he knew he would have to defeat him. The stakes were high, and there could be only one survivor.
***
"Only one member of the cabinet was unable to make it, Mr Vice-President."
The vice-president of the United States, a big, well-connected, Texan, stood behind the podium where, during a normal joint session of Congress, the President of the United States would stand. The whispered voice belongd to one of his aides, Dan Carlysle.
"Who couldn't attend, Danny?"
"The secretary of agriculture, sir, but his under secretary, Dr Horn, is here in his place. The secretary was stricken with a mild case of food poisoning, but his doctors at Bethesda say he's coming along well and we can apprise him of any information he might need."
"Excellent." The vice-president nodded, then looked away from the bespectacled, slightly built man. Beside him sat the Speaker of the House of Representatives. "Mr Speaker, are we ready?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir, we are ready."
"I'd like to suggest that after a brief introduction on your part, we get to the matter at hand as quickly as possible."
"Agreed, Mr Vice-President." The white-haired man nodded gravely.
In the galleries looking down on the House, the needed functionaries sat, filling the area normally reserved for family and invited guests of the government.
Not a single member of either House was absent.
For an instant, the vice-president had the disquieting thought that with the exception of the President himself, whose fate this meeting concerned, the entire United States government -- legislative, executive and judicial branches -- was present in one room.
The Speaker of the House began. "In this trying period, there is no handily available precedent to sight as to the function of the commander-in-chief. For the sake of expediency, I think we should temporarily consider the President as incapable of exercising his office due to the circumstances of his captivity. In his stead, then, I present to you the vice-president of the United States."
Uncomfortably the vice-president took the rostrum on the intermediary dais. In a thick southern drawl, he began: "Mr Speaker, I'll forego the usual lengthy introductions. I welcome y'all here. We meet in an hour of grave crisis. A crisis of which most of you here this evenin' have some awareness. I'll catalog the events. Sometime within the past several days, the town of Reddington, Illinois, was taken over by Nazis sympathetic to cause of the internationally known murderer and bomber known only as 'False- Face.' No one knows False-Face's real face or identity. At noon today, while the President and his motorcade made a scheduled stop in Reddington, these neo-Nazis, possibly under the leadership of False-Face personally, seized the President, his Secret Service detail and other personnel. The exact circumstances of the seizure are as yet unclear, but there is reportedly a bomb laced with VX nerve gas planted in the grammer school in the town of Reddington. There is ample reason to accept the validity of this claim, since False-Face recently perpetrated the theft of one hundred canisters of the VX nerve gas --" the vice-president stopped speaking, as shouts and cries rose from the floor. Behind him he could hear the Speaker's gavel rapping.
The vice-president shouted into the microphone, "Various members of the Congress were alerted to this occurrence, but for security reasons the information was not broadly disseminated. But all this can be discussed later. Please," he shouted.
It was several minutes before the volume of protest had died down and he could resume. "We are wastin' valuable time ... There have been no ransom demands, nothin'. The circumstances of the President's captivity and the mention of the nerve gas were part of a note pinned to the cheek of Kenny O'Brien, one of the President's aides. His head was delivered in a box to an Illinois State Police facility."
The commotion began again, and the Speaker hammered a message of order into the chaos with his gavel.
"Please," shouted the vice-president, "Y'all know what we know. There have been no demands, just the simple statement that if there is any attempt to rescue the President, the bomb will be detonated, spreading the nerve gas all through the town."
There were cries again, louder, and some of the members of Congress rose to their feet. The vice-president shouted into the microphone, "There is one other vital piece of information before we begin deliberation. The President's life and the lives of the nearly one thousand people livin' in Reddington are at stake. The surroundin' area has been evacuated, and select National Guard units and the Eighty-second Airborne have been moved in."
The commotion subsided again, as did the pounding of the Speaker's gavel.
The vice-president sipped at a glass of water on the rostrum, then continued. "With the President, of course, was the Air Force sergeant who carries the satchel known as 'the football.' What this means is that a group of Nazis has possession of the codes and the mechanism by which a full-scale nuclear launch sequence could begin against the Soviet Union."
He had expected shouting and there was none. He exhaled hard. He looked into the sea of faces that appeared in front of him. The wrath he had seen in some of them was suddenly gone. "We are at Defcon Two now," he continued, "so that in the event False-Face and his men should be able to force the President to use the code sequences, we'll be ready. It is impossible in so short a time to reprogram the mass launch sequences without putting the entire system off line and leaving ourselves vulnerable to an attack by the Soviet Union to which we could not respond."
The saddest faces, the vice-president of the United States thought, were those of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the representatives of the CIA, and all the three and four-letter-designated agencies.
The words spilled from him. "God help us all."
***
Selina Kyle sat with the sleeping child on her lap. Her fingers hurt from working the rosary beads, done half to perpetrate the lie that she was a Catholic nun and half out of being ... a little nervous. She hated to admit that of herself. But she was vastly outnumbered and didn't have any rooftops to fade into in the little town of Reddington.
Her head ached from the eye strain caused by wearing the glasses that were a part of her disguise, and for the past twenty minutes she had sat with her eyes closed on a straight-back chair in the prisoner interrogation room of the town jail.
A man armed with a machine gun stood outside the room, and down the hall were the two cells, that now held the President of the United States and his Secret Service protective detail. The Secret Service agents were handcuffed to the bars of their cells.
The sound of the door opening brought her back to an alert state of mind. The man who posed as the police chief strode into the room, his left arm still in the sling. "Sister Angelica, is it?"
"Yes." Selina Kyle nodded.
"And you are visiting here from another convent?"
"Yes, I am."
"You are not Selina Kyle, the famous jewel thief known better as The Catwoman?"
Selina Kyle hoped her eyes didn't betray her. "No -- do I look like a jewel thief?"
"You are a very pretty woman under that --" and he gestured toward her habit.
"I would have hoped that despite the evil thing you are doing, you would at least be a gentleman," Selina told him matter-of-factly.
"I have no designs on you -- unless you wish me to."
He was German and the English was very good, she noted. "I have no wish for this," she answered, then closed her eyes and picked up the rosary beads, which rested against her thighs.
"The little girl," he continued, "is perhaps hungry. You are hungry?"
She opened her eyes again. She wasn't hungry. She dropped the rosary beads to her skirt. "Yes, I'm hungry. At least I think I am. The little girl -- I don't know."
"You can get out of this room for a time, then. We also commandeered a hamburger stand by the highway, and they've kindly catered for us," and he laughed. "The manager was very helpful when we threatened to execute his entire staff unless they brought us food."
"You are an animal," she said, picking up the beads.
"I serve the great cause of the new order, Sister Angelica. Were I the animal you think I am, the child's head would have been sent to the state police post, not the head of the President's aide. Come and eat -- Sister."
Selina Kyle nodded, whispering to the child, "Wake up, darling, come on. We're going to have something to eat. Come on, please," and the little girl began to stir.
She stretched and rubbed her eyes and then looked at Selina, saying, "Hamburgers?"
Selina, despite herself, smiled. "Yes, yes. Come on."
The little girl didn't seem fully awake, and her own legs stiff, Selina Kyle rose from the chair with the little girl in her arms. She heard the soft clicking of the rosary beads as they moved against her clothes, punctuating the child's breathing.
***
Batman walked beside Colonel Flagg. Flagg looked mildly out of place in a suit covered by a raincoat. But so did the three costumed crimefighters, who were all wearing masks. Around them, as they crossed from the road to the center of the conclave, were red and green-bereted, fatigue-clad men carrying M-1s and other assorted military equipment, festooned with pistols and fragmentation grenades. In the distance, the Caped Crusader saw a team with a flamethrower, and behind them a couple of Sherman tanks. Helicopter rotor blades idled lazily, contrasting sharply with the otherwise frantic pace of the hastily put together command post.
Flagg buttonholed a second lieutenant, a National Guardsman, distinguishable by his standard headgear. "Lieutenant, we're looking for General Pauley."
"In that tent, sir, at the center," the lieutenant responded, then called out to a man passing him, "Corporal Brown, take these gentlemen to the general's tent."
"Yes, sir," the corporal returned. "If you gentlemen would follow me, please."
The Masked Manhunter caught the corporal eyeing him, and said as they walked by, "I'm called Batman."
"Thank you, sir, I was wondering."
Batman nodded.
Dr Mid-Nite remembered to himself that he hated meeting generals -- especially ones he'd met before. Creighton Pauley was one of these.
"Here you are, gentlemen," and the corporal smiled as they stopped before a large, dark-brown tent.
The corporal dismissed himself, and Flagg poked his head through the tent flap.
Dr Mid-Nite groaned as he followed the CIA officer and held the tent flap for Batman and Wildcat, who followed after him.
"I hate meeting brass!" Wildcat complained.
"You think you hate it. I know this guy!" Mid-Nite whispered hoarsely.
"Yeah, but you deal with these kind of people all the time. You should be used to it."
Batman said nothing as he crossed the tent floor in Flagg's wake. He could already see the skinhead haircut, the beer belly in the starched creased fatigues at the far end. On the general's hip was a regulation officer's gunbelt for the .45.
Colonel Flagg stopped at the wall of plastic-covered maps before which General Pauley stood. Flagg cleared his throat. Dr Mid-Nite smiled. Pauley knew they were there but was making them sweat. Dr Mid-Nite shrugged, and said something that was somewhat out of character for him, "Hey, skindome -- remember me?"
Flagg's head snapped around. Wildcat laughed in spite of the situation when he saw Flagg's eyes -- white rimmed and wide.
General Pauley's voice was the next voice Batman heard. "I would have figured only a costumed freak would be insubordinate enough to call me that, Mid-Nite. Thought I'd never see you, again."
"You know what they say about bad pennies. I never thought I was going to see you again, either."
Flagg cleared his throat again.
"You got a cough, son -- want some water?" snorted Pauley.
"No, sir -- I mean, General. I'm Sam Flagg, with the CIA. Here are my credentials," and Flagg started digging for his identification case.
"Never mind that," Pauley barked. "If you weren't who you say you are you would never have gotten into the camp here. Who are these other two costumed characters?"
Wildcat didn't say a word. Batman answered. "I'm Batman, General Pauley, and this is Wildcat."
"You guys sure do dress funny. Love the cape, Bat-Man," Pauley said with a sneer.
"These gentlemen are with me," Colonel Flagg interceded. "They represent a group of costumed crimefighters called the Justice Society of America, made up of a number of mystery men with remarkable powers. They've been in on this nerve gas theft since the beginning, and I'm stuck with them since they know more about False-Face than anybody. They stopped False-Face's attempt to detonate a bomb laced with VX in Gateway City and thwarted a second attempt to destroy NASA space headquarters in Cape Canaveral, although the device did detonate in space."
"What's a matter with you costumed creeps, can't find and defeat one guy -- this False-Face character?"
Batman felt his left eyebrow raise underneath the cowl, but he answered calmly, "No, we figured it was more important to make sure that the bombs laced with the nerve gas didn't go off around people before we nabbed the suspect. Sorry you disapprove."
"You don't like me do you, Bat-Man?" Pauley's tone was bullying.
"You read other people's feelings well," Batman replied.
"Bullshit. Hell --"
Dr Mid-Nite interrupted. "I believe we have more important concerns than personal animosities, General Pauley. But, of course, that's only the opinion of a costumed creep."
"It's great the way people just instantly warm to you, isn't it, General?" Wildcat said.
Pauley didn't answer but, after a moment, pointed a brass-tipped swagger stick at the nearest wall map. "All right -- this is Reddington. I've got the entire town ringed, got helicopters in the air over the ring to keep anyone from getting in or out. I was instructed to wait until proper civilian authorities arrived. So what's the scam, Flagg?" Pauley asked, looking at Flagg and jabbing his index finger toward him.
"There's been no further word from the Nazis holding the President?" Flagg began.
"If there had been, fella, I would have mentioned it real quick," Pauley grunted.
"I see," said Flagg. "Well --"
Batman pushed between the two men to study the map. "Let's cut the crap here. Where's the school where they supposedly have the nerve gas canister?"
Pauley shouldered over beside him. "Right there, near the edge of town."
"Your men are how far out?"
"Two miles -- plenty visible to the Nazis."
Batman looked back at the map. "Can they be contacted?"
"Negative on that."
"Not good," Batman muttered, trying to think.
"I'll go to the town, contact them personally," Dr Mid-Nite volunteered.
Batman shook his head, "We'd be just giving them another hostage."
"Maybe a bunch of JSA members could --" Wildcat started.
"Shut up, Pussycat," Pauley snarled to Wildcat.
Wildcat started to step toward the general, but Batman caught his attention, "A raid? I don't think so. We don't know the layout well enough. And we don't have any idea how many of them there are or just exactly where they're holding the President. Even if we did, a lot of innocent people could be killed in the process."
"Then what can we do?" Colonel Flagg asked.
"Yeah, are you some kind of tactical genius, Bat-Man? What can we do?" Pauley mocked.
"You're telling everybody in the area this some kind of exercise, right?" Batman asked.
Pauley only nodded.
"All right, you've got state police by the road. Have them hunt us down some people who are familiar with Reddington, people who went to that school, so we can figure out where the nerve gas might be kept."
"What the hell is going on -- and who the fuck put you in charge, caped creep?" Pauley snapped.
Colonel Flagg cleared his throat. "False-Face has never been stopped. Except by one man -- this man. I hate his guts, too, same as you, General. But I also realize Batman's the only hope we've got against this fiend. I'm in charge, right?"
Pauley hesitated, then nodded, "My orders read that."
"Then you listen to him." Flagg's voice was edged with something final, deliberate.
Batman looked at Colonel Flagg and nodded.
"Just get the damn President out of there alive, Batman," Flagg said. "Get him out before False-Face decides to use the 'football' the President carries to start World War III."
Batman lowered his voice as he looked at the men who were facing him. He merely informed them, "I got a plan."
To be continued ...
