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 10
It had been the fastest trip the President of the United States had ever made to Washington, courtesy of the Green Lantern's power ring. The capabilities of the Emerald crimefighter's ring was practically limited to only the wearer's imagination. This time, the Green Lantern had fashioned a large makeshift rocket for the President's entourage and the JSA members, along with Catwoman.
They arrived at the Capitol building and began to meet with other officials in the Congressional Ladies' Reading Room. The room was within easy reach of Statuary Hall, which fed directly into the House chambers. The far side of Statuary Hall and the House chambers themselves were occupied by False- Face and his men, while the offices of the Committee on Ways and Means were occupied by Colonel Flagg and his crisis management team, whose principal task now was to keep False-Face happy.
A note had been sent to Flagg outlining the JSA's role in the anti-False- Face operation. Scrawled across it when it been returned was the single word, "Bullshit!" and then beneath that, "Good Luck." The note had been passed through an outside window to avoid interception by any of the Nazis inside the building itself.
With Batman, Catwoman, Wildcat, Dr Mid-Nite, Green Lantern, Mr Terrific, the Atom, the President, General Pauley and the various aides, all eyes suddenly turned to Wonder Woman as she made her entrance into the room. The beauty and grace of the woman dressed in the red-white-blue- and gold costume impressed everyone.
"I arrived as soon as I could. I'm happy to help in anyway I can," the Amazon female said.
"Wonder Woman," Batman began, "we're happy you're here. We certainly can use all the help we can get to stop this madman."
The tall brunette superhero nodded and then looked into the grim faces of everyone in the room.
"What is the plan, Caped Crusader?" Wonder Woman asked.
"This'll be split into three basic operations, each one backing up the other," said Batman as he walked to the diagram of the Capitol building that had been taped to the long western wall of the Ladies' Reading Room. "We'll need someone to guide Dr Mid-Nite, Green Lantern, and the Atom into the tunnel complexes under the Capitol itself."
"Ya want us to secure the bombs and nerve gas down there, right, Batty?" the Atom interjected.
"You've got it." Batman nodded.
"And you want me and my power ring to get them out of there," Green Lantern said.
Batman nodded once more. "The three of you should be able to handle whatever is down there. There are probably a number of Nazis guarding the weapons. False-Face indicated earlier that each one of the devices is guarded by some of his people. We, of course, don't know if that's true or not."
Dr Mid-Nite spoke, "I checked with Capitol security. Of the one hundred Nazis allowed inside, some two dozen disappeared under the Capitol structure itself."
Batman nodded. "All right, then, he's telling the truth."
"You want us to try to take them out man by man and neutralize the bombs," Green Lantern began.
"Yes," Batman interrupted, "but that won't do all the good you think it will. If we miss only one device, we're up a creek as long as False-Face has the detonator. And he purportedly has more of the weapons planted around the Capitol."
"How many of these devices are left?" Wildcat asked.
"Nintey-six, Wildcat, each laced with VX nerve gas," Mr Terrific replied. "It's not the explosion itself that will kill people. It'll be the spread of a cloud of nerve gas that could possibly kill every man, woman and child in Washington."
Batman growled at the thought of that happening.
Wonder Woman closed her eyes tight for an instant and then reopened them, contemplating the thought of such a holocaust.
Selina cleared her throat. Batman looked at her. She had changed from the borrowed nun's habit to a pleated light-blue plaid skirt and a light-blue sweater she had liberated from Reddington's only women's clothing store. "What is it, Catwoman?"
"I think there's something I should tell you. All of you. But I don't know how to say it -- especially to you," and she looked at Batman.
Batman, his voice low, almost whispered, "Tell me, anyway. If it has to do with this, tell me now." He watched as she stared down at her hands.
"Tell me now," he repeated.
She looked up at her longtime adversary in both crime and love. The greeness of her eyes was muted. "There is a scar," she began, "on the left side of False-Face's neck. It is in the shape of a lightning bolt. He knows that I've seen it, and I think that's why he didn't kill me."
Batman shook his head. "I don't understand. What's some scar got to --"
She shook her head. "Let me finish."
Batman nodded.
She went on, "I grew up in a fractured home in Gotham City. My mother was cold and distant, loving only her myriad cats and her dreams of wealth and luxury. She committed suicide when I was young. As I grew up, I became more and more like my mother, much to my father's chagrin. My brother and I --"
"You have a brother?" Batman interrupted.
"Let me finish," Selina Kyle insisted. "My father was an alcoholic and died a few years later, when I was twelve. My brother and I became street kids, learning how to steal for our survival. Within a week I was caught and thrown into a home for delinquent girls. But instead of enjoying the safety and guidance a home should provide, I suffered physical and verbal abuse from the women who ran it."
She paused for a moment and then continued, "My life on the streets and in the girls' home drilled two things into my head: one, I could only trust myself; two, stealing is the quickest and easiest way to live."
Selina looked up at the crimefighters, knowing that they all disapproved of what she just said.
"Theft became my career of choice, and even as a girl in the orphanage, I'd slip out a window at night to hone my gymnastics and speed on the rooftops. After I finally escaped the home, I made a living on the streets, stealing full-time with my brother, at times."
She exhaled a breath. "One day, my brother Karl caught his neck on barbed wire -- he was trying to get over a security fence. He slipped while climbing over the fence and fell against the barbed wire. It ripped a huge gash here," she gestured diagonally on her own neck with the fingers of her left hand, from just behind the base of the ear downward almost to the center of the throat.
"He almost bled to death. I took him to a hospital. It was 1944. Then or around that time. The police were called in and arrested him for being wanted in a number of robberies and burglaries. He went to jail and that was the last I saw of him."
"What does all this have to do with False-Face, Catwoman?" Dr Mid-Nite asked. "Time is short."
She looked at him and cleared her throat again. "I'm almost finished, but you all must understand it -- especially you," and her eyes flickered toward Batman.
"Something must've happened to my brother while in prison. Around 1947, I had heard he had escaped and was never seen again. I didn't know if he was dead or alive."
"What does this European Nazi have to do with your brother and you?" Green Lantern asked her, his voice low, deeper sounding than it was usually, Batman thought.
"False-Face is not really of European descent. He's an American. Why or how he became a Nazi, I don't really know," she explained.
"False-Face is your brother, isn't he?" Batman whispered.
Selina looked at him. "False-Face's scar is the same wound I saw on the neck of my brother. I know what his real face looks like!"
"But that was nearly twenty years ago, Catwoman," Mr Terrific interjected.
Selina looked at Mr Terrific and smiled at him. "No, I mean it, it was that long ago, but he was the perfect likeness of my father. He would not have changed. I have pictures of my father at --"
"We could get the Flash to get them," said Wildcat quickly. "He can search her place, grab the photos and get them here faster than anyone."
Batman stood in front of Selina. "If you can help us flesh out what False- Face really looks like, the plan I've formulated has a better chance of working." And then the Gotham Goliath looked to everyone in the room. "Remember the rave reviews I got in Reddington when I played False-Face?"
The President, sitting on a long couch, grinned, nodding.
The Atom spoke up, "This isn't Broadway, Batty. But you'll have a packed house."
***
General Pauley was martialing military forces -- if Batman's plan worked, the Masked Manhunter had told Pauley, a military backup force would be vital. Green Lantern had picked up Hourman and flew him to Washington. He insisted on being part of the takedown of False-Face.
Hourman had a right to insist on playing a part in the demise of False- Face. The entire episode started with False-Face stealing one hundred canisters of the VX nerve gas that Rex Tyler was transporting for the U.S. government.
All the heroes were occupied with a variety of tasks now, and alone in the Ladies' Reading Room, Batman was with Catwoman. He stared at the plans for the Capitol building, which dominated the western wall of the room. He closed his eyes at last, his head aching from staring at them, from wondering.
"Are you disappointed in me?"
It was the first Selina Kyle had spoken since she had concluded the story and had branded False-Face as her brother, Karl.
"No, I'm not disappointed with you. Why should I be? You've helped us all along with this case. I get disappointed when you steal," he told her.
"Well, having False-Face for a brother isn't exactly a ticket to social success."
"You're not a disappointment to me at all. But I've got to ask you a question -- I mean I'd like to," Batman said to her.
"All right."
"If False-Face didn't keep you alive as a wedge against me," Batman said, "and didn't know you knew his true identity, then why did he let you live?"
"I think he wanted me to know eventually, and then to savor killing me. He was always very strange. Maybe he wanted to torture me first, or something. I don't know."
"He'll be dead tonight," Batman told her. "I don't think any jail could hold him. Do you understand that? I don't think he'll be taken alive. Do you understand what will probably happen tonight? He's still your brother."
"People die, Batman. I know you won't kill him with your hands but I realize that something terrible will probably occur tonight."
"Probably," Batman nodded. He couldn't dwell on what may happen to surface. Those types of feelings might make him hestitate, and in the field to hesitate is to die.
"Sometimes," she continued, "though, you know that it's right, that you did something that needed to be done."
"Did I hear you right?" he asked. "You're supposed to be a rogue."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she smiled. "But that's how I feel. I've always felt that way. Don't put me in the same category with the Joker, the Riddler and the rest of those crazies."
There was a moment of silence between the two and then Selina spoke again. "I went to Haiti once, and some of the people in the countryside insist that the dead can be made to walk, that there are zombies. They look human, can perform human tasks, eat and drink and sleep. But inside they aren't human anymore. That is Karl -- or False-Face. Dead inside. If you kill the body he uses, you kill something that is already dead."
Batman knew that it was up to the JSA to stop False-Face. Otherwise, there were going to be an awful lot of people dead.
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 10
It had been the fastest trip the President of the United States had ever made to Washington, courtesy of the Green Lantern's power ring. The capabilities of the Emerald crimefighter's ring was practically limited to only the wearer's imagination. This time, the Green Lantern had fashioned a large makeshift rocket for the President's entourage and the JSA members, along with Catwoman.
They arrived at the Capitol building and began to meet with other officials in the Congressional Ladies' Reading Room. The room was within easy reach of Statuary Hall, which fed directly into the House chambers. The far side of Statuary Hall and the House chambers themselves were occupied by False- Face and his men, while the offices of the Committee on Ways and Means were occupied by Colonel Flagg and his crisis management team, whose principal task now was to keep False-Face happy.
A note had been sent to Flagg outlining the JSA's role in the anti-False- Face operation. Scrawled across it when it been returned was the single word, "Bullshit!" and then beneath that, "Good Luck." The note had been passed through an outside window to avoid interception by any of the Nazis inside the building itself.
With Batman, Catwoman, Wildcat, Dr Mid-Nite, Green Lantern, Mr Terrific, the Atom, the President, General Pauley and the various aides, all eyes suddenly turned to Wonder Woman as she made her entrance into the room. The beauty and grace of the woman dressed in the red-white-blue- and gold costume impressed everyone.
"I arrived as soon as I could. I'm happy to help in anyway I can," the Amazon female said.
"Wonder Woman," Batman began, "we're happy you're here. We certainly can use all the help we can get to stop this madman."
The tall brunette superhero nodded and then looked into the grim faces of everyone in the room.
"What is the plan, Caped Crusader?" Wonder Woman asked.
"This'll be split into three basic operations, each one backing up the other," said Batman as he walked to the diagram of the Capitol building that had been taped to the long western wall of the Ladies' Reading Room. "We'll need someone to guide Dr Mid-Nite, Green Lantern, and the Atom into the tunnel complexes under the Capitol itself."
"Ya want us to secure the bombs and nerve gas down there, right, Batty?" the Atom interjected.
"You've got it." Batman nodded.
"And you want me and my power ring to get them out of there," Green Lantern said.
Batman nodded once more. "The three of you should be able to handle whatever is down there. There are probably a number of Nazis guarding the weapons. False-Face indicated earlier that each one of the devices is guarded by some of his people. We, of course, don't know if that's true or not."
Dr Mid-Nite spoke, "I checked with Capitol security. Of the one hundred Nazis allowed inside, some two dozen disappeared under the Capitol structure itself."
Batman nodded. "All right, then, he's telling the truth."
"You want us to try to take them out man by man and neutralize the bombs," Green Lantern began.
"Yes," Batman interrupted, "but that won't do all the good you think it will. If we miss only one device, we're up a creek as long as False-Face has the detonator. And he purportedly has more of the weapons planted around the Capitol."
"How many of these devices are left?" Wildcat asked.
"Nintey-six, Wildcat, each laced with VX nerve gas," Mr Terrific replied. "It's not the explosion itself that will kill people. It'll be the spread of a cloud of nerve gas that could possibly kill every man, woman and child in Washington."
Batman growled at the thought of that happening.
Wonder Woman closed her eyes tight for an instant and then reopened them, contemplating the thought of such a holocaust.
Selina cleared her throat. Batman looked at her. She had changed from the borrowed nun's habit to a pleated light-blue plaid skirt and a light-blue sweater she had liberated from Reddington's only women's clothing store. "What is it, Catwoman?"
"I think there's something I should tell you. All of you. But I don't know how to say it -- especially to you," and she looked at Batman.
Batman, his voice low, almost whispered, "Tell me, anyway. If it has to do with this, tell me now." He watched as she stared down at her hands.
"Tell me now," he repeated.
She looked up at her longtime adversary in both crime and love. The greeness of her eyes was muted. "There is a scar," she began, "on the left side of False-Face's neck. It is in the shape of a lightning bolt. He knows that I've seen it, and I think that's why he didn't kill me."
Batman shook his head. "I don't understand. What's some scar got to --"
She shook her head. "Let me finish."
Batman nodded.
She went on, "I grew up in a fractured home in Gotham City. My mother was cold and distant, loving only her myriad cats and her dreams of wealth and luxury. She committed suicide when I was young. As I grew up, I became more and more like my mother, much to my father's chagrin. My brother and I --"
"You have a brother?" Batman interrupted.
"Let me finish," Selina Kyle insisted. "My father was an alcoholic and died a few years later, when I was twelve. My brother and I became street kids, learning how to steal for our survival. Within a week I was caught and thrown into a home for delinquent girls. But instead of enjoying the safety and guidance a home should provide, I suffered physical and verbal abuse from the women who ran it."
She paused for a moment and then continued, "My life on the streets and in the girls' home drilled two things into my head: one, I could only trust myself; two, stealing is the quickest and easiest way to live."
Selina looked up at the crimefighters, knowing that they all disapproved of what she just said.
"Theft became my career of choice, and even as a girl in the orphanage, I'd slip out a window at night to hone my gymnastics and speed on the rooftops. After I finally escaped the home, I made a living on the streets, stealing full-time with my brother, at times."
She exhaled a breath. "One day, my brother Karl caught his neck on barbed wire -- he was trying to get over a security fence. He slipped while climbing over the fence and fell against the barbed wire. It ripped a huge gash here," she gestured diagonally on her own neck with the fingers of her left hand, from just behind the base of the ear downward almost to the center of the throat.
"He almost bled to death. I took him to a hospital. It was 1944. Then or around that time. The police were called in and arrested him for being wanted in a number of robberies and burglaries. He went to jail and that was the last I saw of him."
"What does all this have to do with False-Face, Catwoman?" Dr Mid-Nite asked. "Time is short."
She looked at him and cleared her throat again. "I'm almost finished, but you all must understand it -- especially you," and her eyes flickered toward Batman.
"Something must've happened to my brother while in prison. Around 1947, I had heard he had escaped and was never seen again. I didn't know if he was dead or alive."
"What does this European Nazi have to do with your brother and you?" Green Lantern asked her, his voice low, deeper sounding than it was usually, Batman thought.
"False-Face is not really of European descent. He's an American. Why or how he became a Nazi, I don't really know," she explained.
"False-Face is your brother, isn't he?" Batman whispered.
Selina looked at him. "False-Face's scar is the same wound I saw on the neck of my brother. I know what his real face looks like!"
"But that was nearly twenty years ago, Catwoman," Mr Terrific interjected.
Selina looked at Mr Terrific and smiled at him. "No, I mean it, it was that long ago, but he was the perfect likeness of my father. He would not have changed. I have pictures of my father at --"
"We could get the Flash to get them," said Wildcat quickly. "He can search her place, grab the photos and get them here faster than anyone."
Batman stood in front of Selina. "If you can help us flesh out what False- Face really looks like, the plan I've formulated has a better chance of working." And then the Gotham Goliath looked to everyone in the room. "Remember the rave reviews I got in Reddington when I played False-Face?"
The President, sitting on a long couch, grinned, nodding.
The Atom spoke up, "This isn't Broadway, Batty. But you'll have a packed house."
***
General Pauley was martialing military forces -- if Batman's plan worked, the Masked Manhunter had told Pauley, a military backup force would be vital. Green Lantern had picked up Hourman and flew him to Washington. He insisted on being part of the takedown of False-Face.
Hourman had a right to insist on playing a part in the demise of False- Face. The entire episode started with False-Face stealing one hundred canisters of the VX nerve gas that Rex Tyler was transporting for the U.S. government.
All the heroes were occupied with a variety of tasks now, and alone in the Ladies' Reading Room, Batman was with Catwoman. He stared at the plans for the Capitol building, which dominated the western wall of the room. He closed his eyes at last, his head aching from staring at them, from wondering.
"Are you disappointed in me?"
It was the first Selina Kyle had spoken since she had concluded the story and had branded False-Face as her brother, Karl.
"No, I'm not disappointed with you. Why should I be? You've helped us all along with this case. I get disappointed when you steal," he told her.
"Well, having False-Face for a brother isn't exactly a ticket to social success."
"You're not a disappointment to me at all. But I've got to ask you a question -- I mean I'd like to," Batman said to her.
"All right."
"If False-Face didn't keep you alive as a wedge against me," Batman said, "and didn't know you knew his true identity, then why did he let you live?"
"I think he wanted me to know eventually, and then to savor killing me. He was always very strange. Maybe he wanted to torture me first, or something. I don't know."
"He'll be dead tonight," Batman told her. "I don't think any jail could hold him. Do you understand that? I don't think he'll be taken alive. Do you understand what will probably happen tonight? He's still your brother."
"People die, Batman. I know you won't kill him with your hands but I realize that something terrible will probably occur tonight."
"Probably," Batman nodded. He couldn't dwell on what may happen to surface. Those types of feelings might make him hestitate, and in the field to hesitate is to die.
"Sometimes," she continued, "though, you know that it's right, that you did something that needed to be done."
"Did I hear you right?" he asked. "You're supposed to be a rogue."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she smiled. "But that's how I feel. I've always felt that way. Don't put me in the same category with the Joker, the Riddler and the rest of those crazies."
There was a moment of silence between the two and then Selina spoke again. "I went to Haiti once, and some of the people in the countryside insist that the dead can be made to walk, that there are zombies. They look human, can perform human tasks, eat and drink and sleep. But inside they aren't human anymore. That is Karl -- or False-Face. Dead inside. If you kill the body he uses, you kill something that is already dead."
Batman knew that it was up to the JSA to stop False-Face. Otherwise, there were going to be an awful lot of people dead.
To be continued ...
