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 7

The helicopter began to settle for a landing, its rotor blades stirring a cloud of sand and gravel from the ground below. It was nearly 8:00 A.M. The President had been the captive of the Nazis for twenty hours.

Nazis, heavily armed, were ringing the landing area of the helicopter -- the corner of a baseball field at the farthest edge of town from the school and the location of the bomb that had a canister of VX nerve gas attached to it.

Over the sound of the rotors, their beats like the throb of a heart pacing itself to occlusion, came the sound of a bullhorned voice, "Turn back, or the VX bomb will be detonated!"

Batman raised the microphone for the helicopter PA system to his lips. "This is False-Face," he began with his best German accent. "Allow this craft to land and then depart. These are my orders!" He flicked off the PA microphone and said to the pilot, "Land her, Captain."

"Yes, sir. Are you, uh, sure?"

Batman answered into his headset microphone, "No, but we'll find out real quick if they start shooting at us, won't we?"

"Yes, sir. Sure will, I guess." The man laughed with a rolling Deep South accent -- Batman guessed southern Georgia.

Though the legend was that Batman only appeared at night, sometimes the mission dictated that he needed to be out in the daytime. This was one such mission that necessitated his appearance at 8:00 a.m. in the morning.

Batman felt a roll and a lurch as the machine touched down. Then he snapped out of his seat restraint and stepped out through the open door and onto the ground, ducking instinctively as the machine began to go airborne again. The lenses over his eyes built into the cowl he wore protected his eyes against the cloud of dust and gravel. After the dust lifted, he was staring into the faces of two-dozen submachine-gun-armed Nazis.

Two men came quickly forward, one tall, slightly built and fair haired, obviously shivering in the early-morning breeze. The second was also tall, but as dark as the first man was fair, and heavily built, swathed in an Arctic parka.

Batman pulled his cape around him against the wind, moving slowly so they wouldn't think he was going for a weapon. He acted as though he owned the town and belonged there.

"Guten Tag," the thin, shivering blond man nodded curtly.

"Morgen" Batman nodded. He gambled none of the men knew False-Face -- it was not the Nazi's way to associate with underlings. "Ich heisse False-Face -- was ist Ihr Name?"

"Goldstein, Herr False-Face!"

Batman looked at the man carefully before saying, "Goldstein? Juden?"

"Nein, Herr False-Face --"

Batman interrupted him. "Hmmph --" He started to walk like he was in command of the world. He walked past the men, inspecting them like they belonged to him.

He asked, "Wie viele Personen sind sie."

The dark-haired man, falling in step slightly behind and Batman's left answered, "Neunundfunzig, mein Herr!"

"Fifty-nine," Batman repeated in English. "We shall speak in English. It is more within the identity I have assumed of this Bat-Man," and the Caped Crusader added, the German accent gone now, "And where is the President, gentlemen?"

"In the school, Herr False-Face. But it was the woman, the Catwoman, who set the President free," Goldstein stammered.

"She is recaptured, then? Batman asked, keeping his voice as emotionless as he could.

"No, Herr False-Face. The President is with her in the school. They have the detonator and have taken several of our personnel hostage. They have also freed the children of the town," the dark-haired man said.

The frail-looking blond Nazi added, "And --"

Batman stopped in his tracks staring at the man. "Out with it!" he demanded.

The man visibly stiffened. "This woman, Catwoman, she was disguised as a nun, as a Catholic nun."

Batman felt his lip twitch.

"She beat the cra -- she injured -- Herr Stasser and he required medical attention. He has two seperated shoulders and several broken ribs. I have assumed command in his stead. We had no idea of your intentions or of plans for your arrival, Herr False-Face."

Batman forced a laugh. "Have you any idea as to the nature of my disguise, or why a United States Army helicopter taxiied me to you?"

Goldstein, looking very serious, shook his head and added hastily, "No, Herr False-Face, I have not."

"IDIOT! What if I were not False-Face? Hmmmm? I could be anyone who spoke German!"

The man went rigid.

"Where is your SECURITY?" Batman spoke. He was angry, and his voice was sharp. "This is why this Catwoman was able to take the President from you. I have held an entire joint session of Congress while disguised as an under secretary of agriculture. Then, changing disguises to that of my enemy, whom I have personally disposed of -- Bat-Man -- I came here with the full knowledge of the American forces, convinced them I was this costumed fool who was," and Batman indulged himself, "the only man clever enough to foil one of my plans. I then informed the pilot once we had come in range of your guns that I would execute him and land the craft myself if he did not cooperate."

"But they will close in, Herr False-Face!"

Batman smiled at Goldstein. "Hardly. They do not know the President is not under our complete control at this moment -- of this I can assure you. And what of the bomb with the VX nerve gas?"

He had changed the subject quickly from the question of his own identity. "Well, which of you shall tell me? Hmmm?"

The dark man began to speak but changed his mind. It was Goldstein who explained. "They claim to have the detonator, and the President has spoken over a loudspeaker, calling for the citizens of the town to rise up against us. It is a stalemate, Herr False-Face."

Batman reached into his utility belt, extracting what he had originally brought as an ace in the hole to establish his identity. It would now be his key to effecting the escape of the of the President, he hoped. And Catwoman. "This detonator is set to duplicate the effect of the original detonator. The Boomer foresaw such an event."

"Ahh, The Boomer," the dark Nazi chimed in.

"Yes. He foresaw that a duplicate detonator function might be required. Provide me with transportation immediately to where the American President and this ... this ... Catwoman," he spat out, "are. I shall soon have things in hand for I am False-Face, the leader of men."

"Yes, Herr False-Face! Immediately." And the blond Goldstein executed a salute Batman had seen only in World War II movies, a salute he hoped would never again rule half the world or all of it.

Trying to look bored rather than disgusted, Batman raised his right arm to chest level, palm outward. Then he walked on. He hoped he would "soon have things in hand."

***

"There's somebody coming," the President shouted.

Selina Kyle left Sister Mary Albert and ran toward the barricade at the front doors. She dropped down on her knees to the floor beside the President. Her knees felt cold against the floor.

The Nazis at the far end of the driveway, out of effective submachine-gun range, were flanking a single man.

"Batman," she gasped.

"You know that oddly dressed man, Miss Kyle?"

"Yes, at least --" she hesitated.

The man wearing the cape and cowl raised a bullhorn to his mouth. The voice carried a German accent. It was not Batman's voice. but somehow it was. "This is False-Face, Catwoman. Does my appearance startle you? Hmmm?" He laughed.

There was silence.

"What does he mean?" The President whispered.

"He looks like -- like Batman," she said hoarsely. "But he sounds like --"

"I've heard this False-Face is some sort of genius with disguises. Could it be a trick?"

"I don't --" she started.

"Fraulein, the game is up." The man who looked like the Caped Crusader from Gotham City, called himself False-Face and sound totally different from either lifted his right hand. Selina Kyle crawled on her knees to the opposite end of the barricade. She raised a telescope found in a fifth- grade classroom. She had used it earlier to watch the Nazis who surrounded them. She used it now to watch the man with the bullhorn. What he held in his upraised right hand could be a detonator.

"I have the ability," the voice echoed over the bullhorn, "the ability to detonate the bomb with this, despite anything you may have done to it."

She screamed so loudly her voice ached, "Then do it! And die, too!"

"I have no wish to die, Catwoman, but I will, if necessary. Do you wish the children to die, Fraulein?"

If it were Batman, what would he want her to say? And what if it were False- Face, using a different voice. "Go to hell!" she shouted, glancing impulsively behind her to Sister Mary Albert and seeing the look of disapproval in the woman's eyes.

"Perhaps, we shall all go there together, Fraulein. I am coming inside. If there is an attempt to fire at me, I shall simply touch the detonator, and POOF!" He started forward, dismissively handing off the bullhorn to a slim man who stood shivering beside him.

The moment she saw him walk, she knew. It was Batman. But how had he gotten here? The height, about six feet, two inches, was perfectly right. In his face she saw what she had always seen since the first time they met -- courage masked behind a tremendous inner strength.

He was still walking toward her. The President was leveling a revolver across the barricade of lunchroom tables. "No, don't shoot him," she said.

"Miss Kyle," replied the President, "he said he's False-Face. And he's got a detonator. I fired this pistol enough this morning to know how one of these shoots. I can hit that detonator, maybe."

"And blow us all up if it is False-Face, or kill the only man who might get us all out of here alive if it isn't," argued Selina.

"Who is this man -- I mean, who you think it is. Batman?"

"Batman is a costumed crimefighter from Gotham City. I fell in love with him as he tried to arrest me after breaking into musuems and jewelry stores." Selina took some impish delight in shocking the President.

"You what?"

"I told you, I'm a jewel thief -- a burglar, I suppose."

"And this Bat-Man, who does he work for? The police in Gotham City?"

"He works with the police under a wink and a nod, if you will. Right now, he's working with the Justice Society of America. He has been hunting False- Face since the theft of the VX nerve gas canisters. I've been helping them as well."

"In Gateway City and then in Florida?" the President interrupted.

"Yes, that was him."

"But, then, is this him? One of those so-called 'mystery men?'"

She looked through the telescope. "I think it is. I don't know, but I think it is." She glanced back to Sister Mary Albert. "I pray it is."

***

Batman had lost count of the number of missed hours of sleep. The last word he had received about the takeover of the joint session of Congress was that throughout the early-morning hours, heavily armed groups of five to ten Nazis each had drifted into the Capitol. For the moment, there was no choice but to cooperate, the Masked Manhunter knew.

He could see Selina's face now. He wanted to run to her. But he could not.

Batman wondered if she realized that it was him and not False-Face in one of his endless disguises.

There was a glint of glass from the hillside to his left, opposite the school and above. He knew who that was.

He swallowed hard, his mouth dry, and walked ahead, holding the detonator.

"Fraulein, shall I enter?" he called, stopping, affecting his German accent.

"If you touch the detonator, you'll beat us all into death," she snapped.

His lip twitched at her -- one of the reasons he finally concluded that he loved her, he realized, was because of her courage, her toughness. It made the gentleness beneath the facade that much better, that much sweeter.

"I am coming in, then," and he started forward, both hands raised, the right holding the detonator.

He saw the President of the United States. The familiar face now looked worn and drawn. The President was moving the table that blocked the left side of the entrance. A revolver jutted from his trouser band, and another was poised in his right hand.

Batman stepped past, murmuring, "Mr President, this is an honor, sir," using his own voice.

The President said nothing.

Batman stared at Selina. "They said you used the name Sister Angelica. It seems to fit you."

"Anyone could know that," she whispered. Her green eyes were like steel. A lock of black hair fell across her forehead, and she brushed it back from her face.

"Then what should I say? Here, have the detonator. But don't destroy it. We'll need it."

She didn't reach for the detonator. "Prove to me you are who you say you are -- I mean, who you say you are now."

"I can't -- we don't have a bed."

Her eyes flickered. "That's usually my line."

Batman said, "There is one thing."

"Tell me, then. I want it to be you," Selina said.

He watched her eyes as he set down the detonator. "I found a triangular constellation of freckles underneath the bottom of your left knee the last time you had a scissor lock with your legs around my neck -- inside Peacock Jewelers on Prospect Street. And you told me --"

"Never mind what I told you, but I meant it," and she ran into his arms. Batman squeezed her against him.

The President of the United States walked forward after a second, extending his right hand. "I gather then, that you really are Batman."

Still holding Selina, Batman nodded, unlimbering his right hand to shake hands with the President of the United States.

"Yes, sir, that's me."

To be continued ...