"…and to my beloved in-laws, Dwight and Marsha Ellison, I leave all pictures of their daughter Trudy, as well of all of her poems, published and unpublished, for their…"
"Will you cut that out, Monk?" yelled Stottlemeyer. The captain launched himself against the door for what had to be the ninth time since they'd been locked in the chamber. The result was the same as all the previous attempts; he stumbled backwards, clutching his shoulder in agony. "I think we've established that's not going to break it open," Ambrose quipped.
"Well I'm certainly open to any suggestions," Stottlemeyer told him.
"I've got it," Disher spoke up, "We take a pen, and we squeeze the ink into the time lock. That should advance it to the time it's supposed to open."
Stottlemeyer stared incredulously at his adjutant. "I don't think I want to know where you got that from, Randy," he said sarcastically.
"Well, I saw it work on an episode of Get Smart, and…" Disher stated.
"GET SMART?" the captain was thoroughly appalled, "GET SMART?"
"Well, it could work," Disher defended his viewpoint, "I mean, I did see a guy with a banana phone the other day near the Presidio."
Stottlemeyer let out a howl and pounded his head off the wall in frustration. "Don't yell!" Adrian shouted at him, "You're using up the available air!"
He staggered around the chamber, gasping desperately even though there was still plenty of air in the chamber. "Can't breathe!" he lamented almost laughably, "Walls are closing in!"
"Equipment's almost up to full speed," Ambrose noted an increase in the sounds of machinery churning up the duct, "We're down to about four minutes."
"Can't last that long!" Adrian grabbed his brother's vest, "Tell Mom I love her."
"Uh, Mom's dead already, and I'm probably going to be dead too," Ambrose pointed out to him.
"If only he hadn't blasted the radio," Stottlemeyer groaned, "Then we could call for backup to get us out of here. Now we're stuck with no line outside."
"How about smoke signals?" Disher suggested. Stottlemeyer completed ignored him. "With what?" Ambrose took up the line of questioning, "Even toxic waste won't burn that way, and there's no…"
"Wait a minute; Monk, Natalie gave you her cell!" Stottlemeyer realized.
"She said the batteries were nearly dead," Adrian stumbled toward his boss, "Hold me up; I can't stay afloat any longer!"
Stottlemeyer reached into Adrian's pocket and extracted the cell phone. "Downey?" he yelled into it after he dialed his quick response unit, "Move in now; we're about to be irradiated here!"
"Can't swim; drowning!" Adrian swooned in the captain's arms. Stottlemeyer pushed him aside. "We're in the chamber in the far end of the plant; get here quick!" he told his men.
"Bad news, the waste is going to get dumped in about a minute," Ambrose informed them. Disher ran over to the duct and pressed it shut. "That's not going to keep it out, lieutenant," the instruction manual writer informed him.
"EEEYYYAAAAAHHH! EEEEYYYAAAAAAAHHHH!" Adrian reeled around the chamber gasping crazily for oxygen. "Monk, please, get a grip!" Stottlemeyer ordered him.
"Too late, too many of us in here, can't stay afloat!" Adrian grabbed on to Disher's sleeve and hyperventilated all over him. Disher stared at him in bewilderment. "Water's closing in; walls too!" the detective moaned.
"Get me out of here now!" Stottlemeyer pounded on the door again, unable to take much more.
"Here comes the waste now, they've got about ninety seconds," Ambrose said as the sound of rushing liquid started coming down the shaft toward them.
Fortunately, it was at that moment that the sound of footsteps thundering toward the chamber roared up outside. There was a knock on the door. "Captain, are you in there?" someone shouted.
"Yes, break the door open!" he ordered. There was a thumping against the door. "It's locked tight," the officer stated the obvious.
"Shoot the damn lock off!" Stottlemeyer yelled at them.
"You can't shoot that type of time lock," Ambrose informed him, "You'll just ricochet the bullets."
"All right, then blow it off!" the captain ordered.
"Stand clear, sir," the officer told him. There was the sound of something being set into place. The nuclear waste was inching ever closer toward them in the duct; it would be there in seconds.
"Fire in the hole!" came the shout, followed by a muffled blast. Stottlemeyer shoved the door open and charged outside, followed quickly by the others. Disher slammed it shut again just as the slopping sounds of the waste splatting on the floor filled the air. Adrian stumbled over to the nearest officer. "Are you all right, Detective Monk?" the man asked him.
"What year is it?" the detective asked between deep, exaggerated breaths.
"Get that paramedic over here once he's done working on the women, see if Detective Monk sustained any damage," the officer instructed the medical crew by the railing.
"Oh no!" Adrian grimaced heavily at the sight before him there. He could tell that Trevor had savagely beaten both women while they were locked in the chamber, and that he'd choked Sharona as well. The detective cautiously walked over to where the medical crew was treating them. "I, uh, I guess it didn't go too well without us?" he asked, hoping this wouldn't set off a tirade.
"He said I had to be punished for working with you!" Natalie sobbed hysterically, her tears mixing with the blood on her face, "He told me I was less than human to consult you, I can't believe he called me a sub-human! He called me the w-word too! And now he's going to kill my baby! I can't live without her; she's all that keeps me going!"
"I couldn't breathe!" Sharona was, if it was possible, even more distraught. She set upon her former employee eyes that had just seen the very worst side of humanity, "And I looked at him pleading him to stop, trying to tap into the man I once loved, trying to get him to listen to reason! But the man I loved wasn't there. All I saw in those eyes was burning, repressed hatred! Hatred for me, and everything I've tried to believe in! Oh God Adrian, it's all my fault!"
"Your fault?" Adrian frowned as she broke down into uncontrollable tears, "No, no it's not your fault, Sharona, it's not your fault at all!"
"Yes it is!" she cried, "I told him everything: your addresses, your ticks, everything you're afraid of: I told him everything when I thought I could trust him! I gave him the keys to destroying our lives without even thinking he'd become the monstrous animal he is now! Why couldn't I have just stayed away when I had the chance?"
"Hey," without realizing what he was doing, Adrian pulled her and Natalie close into a hug, "hey, you can't blame yourself for that. You had no way of knowing he'd turn into a vicious, animalistic, murderous sociopath. He made the choice to do the things he's done. You're a good woman, Sharona Fleming, and you're not the trash he says you are."
"Adrian," she pulled back and stared at him quizzically, "You're being sympathetic. You're being honestly sympathetic. Are you sure you weren't irradiated?"
"No," a rare iron resolve was permeating his voice, "And don't the two of you worry; he's not going to kill Julie and Benjy on my watch, no sirree."
"Yep, he was definitely irradiated," Natalie asided to Sharona.
"Well, there's just one problem there," Ambrose couldn't have helped eavesdropping, "We don't know where he's got them, or how much he's got to protect himself. If he knows all your weaknesses, he will exploit them."
"Hmm," Adrian thought carefully over what he'd seen and heard over the last half hour, "From what he and Ertley said, it's clear they're hitching a ride to Brazil together, so it's likely they've got the kids at the site they're taking off from. The only thing would be where would they catch a helicopter without…?"
And then it hit him. "Trevor was wearing a Green Goblin mask; he called himself 'The Goblin' throughout this whole thing," he realized, "And the Green Goblin's final act of vengeance before he died—or at least before they retconned it so he didn't die—was…"
"…throwing Gwen Stacy off the George Washington Bridge," Ambrose had picked up on his brother's train of thought. "The Golden Gate," the instruction manual writer surmised, "That would be a nice symbolic place to plant your biggest bomb, being the most visible part of San Francisco." A look of terror crossed his face as he realized exactly what Trevor had in mind for Julie and his own son, "A fall from that height, hitting the water'll be like hitting a brick wall," he realized, "There's no way they'd survive the impact."
"Well then, we haven't got a moment to lose," Adrian sprung to his feet with uncommon courage.
"Not even to clean up the blood you've got on your shoulders?" Ambrose pointed the patches of blood out. Adrian took one look at them and started shrieking in horror. "Oh this is going to go real well," Sharona grumbled.
"Have you got anything Monk?" Stottlemeyer walked over to find his best men hyperventilating again.
"It's the Golden Gate, they've got the last bomb on the bridge," Ambrose told him, "They're going to throw the kids off it before they escape."
"Dear God," Stottlemeyer went white yet again, "A blast on the Golden Gate, that would send up a cloud of radiation all the way to San Diego."
"Captain," Disher ran over, "This was in Ertley's filing cabinet. It seems to be a list of all Caucasian Provinces members in the San Francisco County area."
His boss took the list off him and nodded as he read it. "OK people, listen up," he instructed all the law enforcement personnel milling around, "We've got our suspects right here. Once we print out copies of this, find these people, and lock them up good and tight! Here's how it's going to go: Lieutenant, you take bomb on Telegraph Hill, and I'll take the one in Chinatown personally. The rest of you that aren't helping with evacuations, get to the Golden Gate Bridge; you'll find the last bomb, as well as our mastermind, Mr. Edward James Ertley, right there. Along with him, you'll find a certain notorious fugitive, Mr. Trevor Benjamin Fleming, waiting for a helicopter. DO NOT let them take off under any circumstances! Monk, I want…Monk?"
The detective was in fact already long gone. He pushed open the door to the plant and stared around the yard, looking for an open vehicle to take to the bridge.
"Over here," Ambrose called to him. His brother was halfway inside a police tank near the gate. "Are you sure?" Adrian frowned, "I mean,…"
"If he was Tennyson's backup, then this is personal for me like it is for you," Ambrose said with his own rare sense of resolve. Adrian shrugged and climbed up into the tank. "No don't close the hatch!" he protested as Ambrose reached for it, "It would be…safer with it open."
"OK, now how do you start this thing?" Ambrose eyed over the controls as his brother wiped each and every one of them down, "I know I read about starting tanks somewhere before and…oh yeah, it's this one."
He pulled the throttle in question. The tank roared to life. "All right, let's do it," Adrian said enthusiastically…
…only then realizing that Ambrose had never driven ANYTHING before in his life. The tank lurched out of its spot, then abruptly braked to a halt. Then started up again. Then stopped again. Then started up again. Then stopped again. "You, you may want to go a little faster, we are down to only twenty-five minutes or so," Adrian pressed his brother.
"They should have labeled these levers; I think this one takes the brake off," Ambrose pulled it. The brake did come off, but the result was that the tank started spinning in circles, sending front-line police that had been exiting the plant scattering. The tank's battering ram shattered the windows of cruisers unlucky enough to be parked near it. "AMBROSE!" Adrian yelled, hanging onto the roof for dear life. The hatch abruptly slammed down on his fingers. He yelping in pain and pulled them in.
"Ah, it's this one," Ambrose pulled another lever, which finally restored equilibrium to the tank. He floored it, and their vehicle lumbered toward—and ultimately through--the main gate. "Now all we have to do is find the 101," he commented as they roared up the street, "and we'll be going right to the bridge. With everyone leaving the city, traffic'll be light."
"Lucky for the other motorists…a stop sign is not a suggestion!" Adrian protested as the tank blew through one. "You're on the wrong side of the road!" he screamed.
"This thing doesn't seem to have any lateral control," Ambrose pulled a couple more levers, none of which seemed to serve any real purpose. They were now going down a steep hill. "Brakes, brakes, brakes!" Adrian warned him.
"I'm trying the brakes," Ambrose pulled the two levers he'd decided were the brakes, "I think Isaac Newton's driving this thing right now."
"Why couldn't we have just picked up a normal car like—milk truck!" Adrian shouted his warning just in time. Ambrose turned what was now obviously the steering column to the right, just narrowly avoiding the collision with the milk truck. He did, however, collide with the front display of a department store, completely demolishing it. He then took out three consecutive streetlights before he was able to get back into traffic, just barely missing a bus bench on which two old men reading a newspaper. "Was that the Number Seventeen?" one of them asked without looking up.
"Nope," his associate said, "Just an out of control police tank."
"Oh," the first old timer nodded and buried his head in the paper.
"Parade, there's a parade up there!" Adrian pointed to a Christmas parade coming right at them.
"I see the parade," Ambrose squinted through the slit at the front of the tank, "I don't think this is supposed to be on this route."
"Neither are we; turn!" Adrian shouted. Ambrose turned as best he could, but it wasn't enough to keep from sideswiping the first two floats. "Official police business, sorry about that folks!" the instruction manual writer yelled to the parade members fleeing from him.
"You think they care?" Adrian felt like he was going to pass out if another crisis arose. "Wait, wait, stop the tank."
Ambrose somehow ground it to a halt. "What?" he asked his brother, who was already climbing out the hatch.
"The one light on that angel there, it's out," Adrian pointed to the decoration on the nearest streetlight. The detective squirmed as far up the pole as he would dare—only about two feet—and turned the light until it lit back up. "There, that's better," he said.
"That's not," Ambrose pointed behind them. Legions of angry townspeople were charging after them. Before Adrian knew it, Ambrose had started the tank and was taking off again. "Hey, Ambrose, wait for me!" he cried, running as hard as he could to keep up with the tank. He grabbed onto the rear bumper and held on for dear life as he was dragged into a hard left turn. Once everything was straightened out, he swung his back legs up onto the rear of the tank, only to find himself freaking out again as a snowball thrown by one of the townspeople landed on his shoulder. He slipped and almost lost his balance, but miraculously managed to hang on. "Here, the 101 freeway, turn," he instructed Ambrose, who did just that. Adrian slowly managed to crawl back into the tank, although he kept his upper body safely outside the claustrophobic interior of the vehicle. "Let me navigate," his told his brother, "I've got a good clear view up here, as long as no airborne germs try to single me out, so speed her up—but not that fast!" he protested as Ambrose zoomed to almost a hundred miles an hour. The tank yawned all over the deserted highway, slamming into the median barrier and guardrail as if it were a pinball. "Could you at least TRY to drive in a straight line?" Adrian berated Ambrose, perhaps a bit unfairly.
"I'm working on it, I'm working on it," Ambrose threw several more levers, also to no effect, "The good news is, we're on a direct line with the bridge now."
"And the other drivers will be laughing at us all the way there," Adrian couldn't help noticing the drivers leaving the San Francisco metro area honking their horns and laughing at them as they sped comically by.
The next thing the detective knew, the tank abruptly turned a hundred and eighty degrees, leaving him staring backwards at the highway they'd just driven over. "Ambrose, what in God's name are you doing now?" he shrieked.
"I, uh, guess I threw a wrong switch in here," Ambrose admitted.
"Then reverse it!"
"I can't," Ambrose held his hand up through the hatch. The lever in question had broken off in it. Adrian put his hand over his face. "Get the lilacs ready, Trudy, we're probably joining you tonight after all!" he shouted up at the heavens.
"I can't see now, Adrian, you'll have to be my eyes," Ambrose informed him.
"Road construction coming up, get in the left lane…no Ambrose, your OTHER left!" Adrian cried out. The tank smashed into the work zone, knocking over a highway truck parked too close to them. With traffic down to one lane, it didn't have the freedom to drift as much now, and as such sent dozens of air barriers flying through the air. "I always did want to do that," one of the astonished workers admitted to an associate as he watched them fly to the sides.
The tank hit a patch of severely road roads. The jolt sent Adrian flying backwards, where he landed very hard on the battering ram. His lips pursed from the intense pain in his groin. But it was only the beginning. A wide swerve to the right sent him reeling off the ram, which he just managed to grab on to in time. "Would you stop blocking the view?" Ambrose argued from the slit inside the tank.
"Very funny, very funny!" Adrian had to run fast to avoid losing his grip.
"You don't happen to see if there's a turn coming up, do you?" Ambrose inquired.
"No, but you're about to hit a…" Adrian's plea came too late, followed by a loud crash. "Sign bridge," he sighed, watching it collapse to the freeway behind him.
For an agonizing ten miles, the detective was forced to basically run for his life. Finally, he was able to swing himself up onto the battering ram and slowly inched back to "dry land." Ambrose had now climbed partially up to out of the tank to watch where he was going. "Well, at least you're getting a good exercise," he said, making a weak attempt at humor. He was sweating heavily, not at all used to being out on the road.
"Indeed," Adrian wiped his brow, "Well, at least now I know what things looked like on the Texas when they chased after the General during Andrews's Raid."
"My thoughts exactly, it's like…"
"Traffic's merging, traffic's merging, watch the starboard side!" Adrian pointed. They'd made even better time than he'd expected, and were now merging with Route 1, which was not nearly as deserted as the 101 had been. Ambrose had to swerve quickly to avoid hitting cars. "Hey, watch where you're going, you lousy drunken cop!" one irate driver yelled at them as they destroyed a sign reading GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE ½ MILE: PREPARE TO STOP AND PAY TOLL. "Get in the E-Z Pass lane," Adrian instructed his brother, "That'll be quicker. See if you can make them out up there on the bridge's infrastructure."
'Shouldn't that be your job?" Ambrose asked him.
"Well I figured since you're facing front…slow down!" Adrian once again freaked out as they approached the bridge's toll barrier. As fate would have unluckily had it, the tank was hurtling for the one that had the most cars lined up. Ambrose yanked the brake levers—which immediately broke in his hands like the lever that had turned them backwards had. "Uh, I think you're going to have to hit the deck, Adrian," he warned his brother, holding up the broken levers. Adrian groaned. "Why does every attempt to hunt Trevor down have to involve a chase and crash?" he thought out loud dismally. The tank drifted to the right just in time to avoid hitting innocent motorists, although it did obliterate the tollbooth in the next lane, which caused the roof to collapse over several mercifully empty lanes on either side. Moments later, the tank drifted off the road and mercifully crashed into one of the ascending cables, just a few feet from tipping over into the bay. Adrian shook himself off and dragged Ambrose out of the now smoking tank onto the bridge's walkway. They're up there," Ambrose pointed up at the far tower. People were definitely moving around up there—and helicopters were circling at a distance.
"Great," Adrian groaned, realizing he had a big climb high above the bay ahead of himself, "As if crashing isn't enough, why does Trevor always set these showdowns up way up in the air?"
"So what does that mean for you?" Ambrose looked at him strangely.
"Nothing," Adrian straightened his lapels, "Except that I'm going to have to put in overtime on this one. Cover my back, Ambrose. If any more of these white supremacist guys tries and ambush me, yell up a warning or something."
"Great, great," Ambrose nodded without much commitment, "Now I've got to go get a roof over my head again, just to get back in the rhythm, you know."
"Right, right," Adrian would have preferred under the circumstances he wouldn't, but he knew better than to fight Ambrose over something like this. He watched his brother trot off for the temporary safety of a tollbooth, then ran for the far tower. It looked even higher than ever now, but he knew he had to get up there if he wanted to stop Ertley and Trevor before they committed more murder.