TWIN DEMONS by Georgia Kennedy
Author's Notes
The Geneva Convention is the treaty governing the treatment of prisoners of war, which entered into force on October 21, 1950.
Some of the dialogue between Spider-Man and the two motorcycle assailants is taken from actual intelligence reports gleaned from detainees at Guantanamo Bay. See Richard Serrano, Military Report on Guantanamo Highlights Danger of Al Qaeda, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2005.
"Capito?" is the Italian expression for "understood?"
S.W.A.T. stands for "Special Weapons and Tactics." A S.W.A.T. team is an elite police unit called in to handle dangerous situations.
Disclaimer
This is a derivative work of fiction featuring characters copyrighted and trademarked by Marvel Characters, Inc. It is based upon: Spider-Man, copyright 2002 by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., all rights reserved; Spider-Man 2, copyright 2004 by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., all rights reserved; Daredevil - Director's Cut, copyright 2004 by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc., all rights reserved; and Hulk, copyright 2003 by Universal Studios, all rights reserved. The author is not connected with nor is this work authorized by Marvel Characters, Inc., or any of the aforementioned motion picture studios. This work is intended solely for posting on Fanfiction, for the benefit and enjoyment of its intended audience. No commercial or financial benefit accrues or is intended to accrue to the author as a result of said posting. Any unauthorized copying or redistribution of this work might subject the party responsible for such unauthorized copying or redistribution to legal action by the owners of the aforementioned copyrights and trademarks.
X
THE FACE OF EVIL
Acting purely on impulse and adrenalin, Peter threw himself in front of Aziz, his wife and children, and Foggy Nelson, who were walking toward the street, still unaware of the impending danger. At the same instant, Matt whirled around and pressed the cherub emblem on the handle of his cane, transforming his seemingly innocuous assistive device into a wicked-looking silver and red billy club.
A split second later, a large and powerful motorcycle came roaring up the street in front of the Federal Plaza. From the sound of its engine, Matt was able to identify the bike as a Kawasaki Vulcan 2000. There were two men on the Vulcan. They were dressed in jeans and brown leather jackets, their faces concealed by visored helmets. The rider held onto the driver with his right hand to maintain his balance. He gripped an automatic pistol with his left hand . The cycle jumped the curb, causing frightened pedestrians to scatter, clearing a path to the assailants' intended target.
To Aziz's little girl, the Vulcan was a horrible monster swooping down on her. She screamed hysterically, hugging her daddy, her mommy, and Elmo. The baby started crying as his mother held him in her arms, his pacifier falling out of his mouth and onto the sidewalk. Aziz's wife was so terrified that she froze, unable to move a muscle. "Get down!" Peter shouted as he encircled Foggy and the Aziz family with his arms and practically shoved them behind a nearby pretzel cart.
Confident that his charges were shielded from harm, Peter stepped into the path of the oncoming motorcycle, intending to disable it with a web ball. But before he could even draw a bead, he saw Matt hurl some kind of cylindrical object at the bike. It was an extremely well-timed, incredibly precise shot that knocked the rider's pistol out of his hand just as he was taking aim at where he thought Aziz was. The Vulcan wobbled momentarily at the impact of the club before righting itself. The rider screamed in pain as the bike sped away, yet somehow managed to keep from falling off. But Peter did not have time to ponder how a blind man could throw an object with such power and deadly accuracy. He was already in hot pursuit of the would-be killers, moving so fast that he appeared as a blur to everyone . . .
. . . Everyone, that is, except Matt Murdock, whose radar-like sensory capabilities enabled him to hear, see, smell, and touch at frequencies far beyond the normal range of human senses. Air currents, invisible to everyone else, looked to Matt like a vibrant, luminescent sea of blue that made stationary and slow-moving objects stand out in sharp, shadowy relief. Fast-moving objects, on the other hand, left phosphorescent trails bright as comets. Thus, in this strange and beautiful world, Peter appeared to Matt as a streak of blue light that disappeared into a nearby alley and emerged seconds later . . . more than fifty feet above the ground. Matt watched in amazement as Peter took to the skies, carried along by some kind of bungee cord. Pete, he recalled, thinking back to his encounter with the people behind the billboard. His girlfriend called him "Pete." At that moment, the last piece of the puzzle that was Peter Parker finally fell neatly into place.
But Matt's attention quickly returned to his client's safety. "Are you all right, Mr. Aziz?" Matt asked Peter's ex-boss, reassuringly.
Severely traumatized, Aziz nodded as he held his still-catatonic wife and screaming children in his arms. "It's all right. We're okay now," he whispered soothingly to them in Arabic.
Matt patted the children gently on the head to calm them down. He was as tender toward the helpless as he was merciless toward evildoers. Seeing this, Aziz's wife became animated again, apparently feeling safe now that the danger had passed.
"We 've got to get you to safer ground." Matt said to Aziz urgently. "I suggest that you and your family accompany my partner back to our law office and wait there until this thing blows over. Whoever did this might try again. Is that all right with you?"
"Yes, yes, Mr. Murdock, by all means!" Aziz gasped, still shell-shocked by the thought that his life could have ended that day. He'd heard horror stories about post-traumatic stress syndrome from friends of his who had fought in Iraq, and prayed fervently that he and his family be spared from permanent psychological harm.
"Get a cab," Matt ordered his partner as he quickly helped Foggy and the Aziz family to their feet.
"I'm on it," Foggy said, still shaken by the near ambush. He wobbled hastily to the curbside and flagged down an approaching taxi. When the cab arrived, Foggy helped the Aziz family into the back seat. Then he climbed into the front seat and gave the driver the address of his law firm.
"As soon as you get to the office, call Brinks and tell them to send over two guards," Matt instructed Foggy just before the cab pulled away. Brinks was a security firm that Nelson and Murdock retained whenever they needed extra protection for a client. This was one such occasion.
"But Matt, what about you?" Foggy asked apprehensively through the taxicab's rolled-down window.
"I've got something I need to check out." Matt replied somewhat cryptically, not wanting to alarm his partner any further. "Wait for my call before you send Mr. Aziz home."
"Will do," Foggy called back as the cab drove off. Matt quickly retrieved his club and transformed it back into a cane. He hailed another cab and got in himself, oblivious to the stares of the passers-by who were gaping at the sight of a blind man summoning a taxi.
Matt's keen legal mind went into overdrive as he rode back to the Kitchen. He'd already deduced that the attempt on Aziz's life had something to do with that cell phone call he'd picked up in the courtroom. But what? he asked himself, frustrated that the answers were not forthcoming as fast as he would've liked. Someone had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to try and get Aziz deported. Was it possible that Aziz's acquittal had dealt an unexpected setback to whomever it was that wanted him out of the country?
One thing was certain—he wasn't going to get answers just sitting around. Throughout the ride, he stretched his hypersensitive hearing as far is it could go, listening intently for any police radio activity that might give a hint of what was unfolding. Without really knowing why, he had an inkling that something huge was about to go down. He would have find out what it was. . . and fast. Which meant that, for the first time in his life, Daredevil would have to make a daylight appearance . . . and would probably cross paths with Spider-Man, who, without a doubt, was already on the case. Well, it had to happen sooner or later, Matt thought as he mulled over the prospect of the two heroes coming together.
He had mixed feelings. Although Spider-Man's bravery was beyond question, he had a reputation of being a wise guy, or so Foggy kept saying in his running commentaries on the tabloids. He's young, Matt mused, and most twenty-year-olds tend to be a little cavalier anyway. On the other hand, Peter had exhibited a maturity beyond his years when he testified at Aziz's hearing . . . a maturity no doubt forged by his being forced to assume adult responsibilities far too early in life. The Daily Bugle's unflattering portrait of the webslinger did not quite square with Matt's personal experience of the young man. Given the urgency of the present situation, Matt decided he would swallow whatever misgivings he might have and accept Spider-Man as a partner, at least on this mission. But I've got to be cautious, he thought, and not lay all my cards on the table right away.
He listened to the myriad noises with intense focus, struggling to sift out a gem here and there from piles of useless ore. He was so intent on what he was doing that he did not realize that the cab had stopped in front of his brownstone. The cabbie, a swarthy, heavyset man sporting a Hell's Angels tattoo on his arm, shouted in a thick Brooklyn accent, "Hey Mac, you wanna get movin? I got udda custamas!"
"Sorry," Matt apologized as he got out of the cab, peeled a twenty from a roll of bills in his pocket, and handed it to the fat cabbie.
"Thoity chief," the cabbie snapped, "you still owe me ten bucks."
"I thought it was twenty," Matt said, with utmost patience. Having lived in New York City his whole life, Matt had a pretty good idea of what cab fares should be. He had ridden to and from the Downtown area so many times that twenty dollars was ingrained in his memory.
"Thoity," the driver repeated, an undercurrent of defensiveness in his voice.
"Check your meter," Matt responded in a soft, but no-nonsense tone. Although he could not read the meter himself, he knew from the sudden flutter of the cabbie's heartbeat that the fare was twenty dollars and not thirty. And it angered him to no end that this greedy son of a bitch was trying to rob him blind . . . literally. While the amount was trivial, the principle was not.
"Thoity," the fat cabbie insisted, not realizing the trouble he was getting himself into.
"Sir," Matt continued, in full cross-examination mode, "I am a trial attorney. I get paid big bucks to know when people are telling the truth. And right now, I know for a fact that you are lying about the fare, so don't waste my time trying to convince me that I owe you any amount other than the twenty dollars I already paid you. If you persist in carrying on this little charade, you will be in violation of numerous federal, state, and local laws protecting the rights of disabled individuals, not to mention guilty of fraud, in which case you could add imprisonment to a hefty fine and indefinite suspension of your license to operate a taxi."
The cabbie was too flabbergasted to reply. He just sat behind the wheel of his cab, his mouth hanging open.
"On the other hand, if you are willing to forget those ten dollars, I am willing to forget this incident," Matt continued in a conciliatory tone. When the cabbie didn't respond, Matt asked coolly, "Do we have an understanding then?"
Matt took the cabdriver's continued silence as a yes. "I bid you good day then, sir," he said as he walked away without bothering to close the door. He heard the cabbie mutter, "muthafuckin uppity lawyah!" before driving away.
You have no idea, Matt thought menacingly as he prepared to exchange his charcoal grey suit for a crimson one.
XXXXXXXXXX
High above Downtown, Spider-Man spotted the Vulcan 2000 as it headed north on Lafayette Street, weaving in and out of traffic. Off in the distance, he heard a siren. Good, he thought approvingly, the cops are on this too. Like Matt Murdock, Spider-Man was sure that the attack on Mr. Aziz was triggered by that cell phone conversation. The notion someone wanted his former employer dead seemed so farfetched, but the evidence was unmistakable.
As he pursued the bike, his spider-sense was coming through as a low-level buzzing in the back of his head, without the seeming slow-down in the external environment that signaled imminent danger. The buzzing sensation indicated caution, and that was exactly how he intended to proceed.
Spider-Man saw the Vulcan suddenly turn left at Canal Street, traveling west for a few blocks. Then it made a sharp right onto 6th Avenue, and was once again heading north. Do those idiots really think they can outrun me? he thought contemptuously as he pulled ahead of the bike. At the intersection of 6th Avenue and 28th Street, he landed a ledge ten stories up. It would give him perfect leverage for what he was about to do.
Perched in his sniper's nest, Spider-Man took aim at the rapidly approaching motorcycle. At the optimal moment, he fired three webshots. The first shot snagged the rider, the second caught the driver, and the third stopped the bike itself. Unfortunately, he was unable to prevent traffic from piling up behind the disabled Vulcan. He hoped that no one got hurt.
Once he was confident that Aziz's attackers were secured in his webbing, Spider-Man dragged them up the side of the building, a dizzying journey of sixty-five stories that took less than three minutes. At first, they thrashed about like hooked swordfish struggling to break free. But once they saw the direction in which they were heading, they decided that it was far wiser not to resist. They went limp, hanging like dead weights over Midtown Manhattan while Spider-Man pulled them toward the roof of the skyscraper. As they got closer, he was able to make out expressions of terrified disbelief under their helmets. Those expressions changed to outright horror once he yanked them over the concrete retaining wall that surrounded the roof. I must look like some sort of faceless demon to them,Spider-Man thought coldly as he smiled beneath his mask, taking grim satisfaction in his ability to strike fear into criminals' hearts the way Flash Thompson had once struck fear into his.
Before the two would-be assassins could put up any resistance, Spider-Man bound them, back-to- back, using cords of webbing as thick as ropes, and hundreds of times more powerful. They were tied together so tightly that they could not move a muscle. Spider-Man checked the cords to make sure that their circulation was not cut off. Then he wrapped them in a cocoon of gossamer strands, spinning them like a top with one hand while shaping his web with the other. He'd spun them around so fast that they quickly became nauseous and lost their balance.
Spider-Man yanked off their helmets, impatient to get his first close look at the assailants. Like Hagdabi, they appeared to be of middle eastern extraction, although he was unable to tell precisely where they were from. The taller of the two, the rider, sported a thick mustache and had streaks of blonde running through his otherwise dark hair. The driver was clean-shaven, but had a deep scar running down his right cheek. Both wore defiant expressions on their faces, hoping that the strange creature who held them captive wouldn't notice how frightened they really were.
"You guys are obviously out-of- towners," Spider-Man said, trying to keep both his cool and his sense of humor under the stressful circumstances of having to interrogate foreign nationals who might not understand English. "In case you didn't know, you need a license to carry a firearm in this state."
The two men just stared resolutely ahead, saying nothing.
"You want to tell me why you tried to kill that man back there?" Spider-Man continued, not really expecting much cooperation on their part. "You're not going anywhere until you do."
They remained silent.
"Well?" Spider-Man prompted, holding his temper in check, "we have lots of time."
"Fuck you, infidel!" the driver snapped bitterly in a heavy Spanish accent.
"I'm Catholic, if you really want to know," Spider-Man responded nonchalantly, inwardly relieved that at least he would not have to worry about a language barrier. The fact that the man might be from Europe or Latin America surprised him, though, and complicated his mental efforts to figure out who Aziz's attackers were and what they were up to.
"You are scum!" the rider snarled with an unmistakable middle eastern accent, his eyes blazing, his face twisted into a mask of hatred. "You are human refuse! And we are going to wipe you out, you and your whole fucking city, right off the face of the Earth! The Apocalypse is coming, just like your Book of Revelations says! We're going to finish the job we started on September 11th! This den of filth is going to be swallowed up by the Great Satan's own fires!"
As soon as he heard those maniacal ravings, Spider-Man realized exactly what he was dealing with. These guys were members of Al Qaeda. He had no doubt now that New York City was in for another terrorist attack. And he understood that the responsibility for stopping that attack was about to fall squarely on his shoulders.
The driver chimed in with more murderous threats. "It doesn't matter what you do to us!" he hissed like a cobra about to lash out. "There are thousands of warriors, in every country, getting ready to wage holy jihad against you! We can strike you at anytime, any place, and when we're finished here, we'll bring disaster on all your cities! We'll cut your womens' heads off and revel in sucking your childrens' blood! So, go ahead and send us to paradise! There are plenty more waiting to take our place."
"Shut the fuck up!" Spider-Man screamed as a deluge of awful memories, thoughts, and emotions swept through his already-scarred psyche. Like most New Yorkers, Peter Parker remembered exactly where he was and what he was doing on that beautiful, peaceful, late Summer day in 2001, the only day on which his thoughts did not center on Mary Jane. School had just gotten under way when suddenly everyone was sent home, no reason given. When he arrived at his aunt and uncle's house, he found them glued to the television set. He vividly recalled the utter horror he felt as he watched the magnificent Twin Towers collapse after the hijacked jetliners plowed into them. He sat with them for hours in front of the TV, staring numbly at the pile of dust, rubble, bones, and blood that only one day before had been one of the most important commerce centers in the world. His despair soon turned to anger at those responsible for this terrible atrocity. For days afterward, he repeated over and over the vow made by every policeman and fireman in the city. . . Never again!
And now, as Spider-Man, he faced the very real possibility that thousands more could perish in a sequel to September 11th, including those dearest to him. He never felt more frantic and terrified of failure than he did at that moment. For all he knew, Aunt May could be out shopping and Mary Jane could be riding the subway . . . and he would be powerless to save them. That thought alone nearly paralyzed him.
At the same time, he felt an almost uncontrollable fury welling up from deep inside, a fury that soon dwarfed the hatred his captives had expressed moments before. Only two other people had been the objects of anger this intense . . . the thief for murdering his uncle Ben, and the Green Goblin for nearly killing M.J. And both of them were dead. Peter knew that he had to control his temper, since these men could prove to be valuable sources of intelligence. Nevertheless, he resolved that he would use every means at his disposal to find out exactly what it was these barbarians were planning. And he knew from his captives' initial reactions that they were afraid of him, despite their extreme militancy. That suggested that maybe they weren't as willing to die for their cause as they would have him believe.
Spider-Man decided to test his theory. "All right, here's the deal!" he barked angrily. "I ask questions, and you give me answers. And if you don't tell me what I want to know, or if I don't like what I'm hearing, I throw your asses off the roof. Capito?" He hoped, for their sakes, that they would cooperate.
They did not, at least not at first. The driver, his features deformed by his own hate, tried to spit in Spider-Man's face. Alerted by his own unique brand of precognition, Spider-Man leaned sharply to the side and easily avoided the saliva projectile. But the driver's brazen defiance finally sent him over the edge.
"Now see, that's not the kind of cooperation I would've expected from someone in your position," he seethed, fury rippling through his entire body even as he kept his voice low. "I think you guys really need to learn a lesson." Spider-Man lifted the two of them over his head as effortlessly as the Hulk had lifted the tank, and without another word, hurled them upward with every ounce of strength he had. The two of them shot up over a thousand feet before their trajectory slowed, stopped, and reversed.
All thoughts of meeting seventy virgins in heavenly paradise abruptly vanished from the two terrorists's minds as they found themselves in free fall. Instead, their eyes bulged in horror as they saw the street rushing up to meet them at a frightening speed.
Spider-Man heard their terrified screams as they plummeted toward 6th Avenue. Maybe martyrdom isn't really that appealing once it becomes imminent, he thought wryly. Operating at superhuman speed, Spider-Man effortlessly tracked the men as they fell. He snagged them with a perfectly-timed webshot just as they were about to strike a passing bus.
Just when they were sure that they would hit the bus, the two Al Qaeda operatives felt their fall being broken by a highly elastic bungee cord. Their rescue was so precise that they actually touched the bus very lightly before being hauled swiftly back up the side of the building from which they were thrown by that spider-demon. Miraculously, neither man had sustained whiplash injuries. But they were so frightened at the prospect of an early martyrdom all over the streets of Manhattan that many of their bodily functions were shutting down. As a result, the rider lost control of his bladder while the driver lost control of his bowels.
As Spider-Man brought the two slugs to within ten feet the roof, his nostrils were offended by the foul odor of human excrement. He turned his head away in disgust, holding his left hand over his mouth and nose. In his right hand, he held the webline gingerly between his thumb and forefinger, as if he were holding a dead rat by the tail. The men were still dangling over six hundred feet above 6th Avenue.
"Now, are you guys gonna talk or do we do the human yo-yo trick again?" Spider-Man demanded sharply as he dragged their dead weight back over the retaining wall, a glimmer of humor finding its way into an otherwise serious situation. Such improvisational comedy was very often the only way he could keep his fear and anger from spiraling out of control.
The two of them started talking . . . in Arabic. They were mocking his ignorance of their operation with their incomprehensible babble, which made him even madder. As thoughts of M.J., Aunt May, and even J. Jonah Jameson and Harry Osborn flashed across this mind, he was beginning to wonder if the terrorists' plans had already been set into motion. His nerves were stretched to the breaking point, and he decided that he wasn't going to waste any more time with this subhuman trash, who had already pushed him into doing things that were beyond the bounds of human decency.
"You clowns just don't get it, do you," Spider-Man said, a deadly venom lurking beneath his casual bravado. "I'm not subject to the Geneva Convention!"
Now that those scum were covered in their own filth, he no longer wanted to touch them directly. Thinking fast, he started to whirl them around as though he were an Olympic hammer thrower. "This'll be a world's record if you guys land in the Hudson River," he shouted mockingly at them. Fortunately, the two men wisely concluded that life was better than martyrdom after all. "All right, we'll talk!" the driver screamed, "We'll talk." Spider-Man stopped theircircular momentum and set them down, but kept them far enough away that he would not have to smell them. "Don't you dare bullshit me!" he yelled. "If you lie to me, I may not be inclined to save you if you happen to fall off this building again. Now, tell me exactly what it is that you're up to!"
The rider talked first. "Dirty bombs . . . in the subways," he said with a calm casualness that belied an intent to murder thousands in cold blood. Spider-Man's eyes widened in horror beneath his mask as he found himself looking straight into the face of evil. He had never dealt directly with terrorists before, and could not even begin to understand what motivated them. Unlike the Goblin and Doc Ock, once decent human beings whose sanity ended as a result of their own hubris, these jihadists were perfectly rational people whose very sense of identity derived from mass destruction of life and limb. That anyone would willingly be a part of such evil was totally beyond his comprehension.
"How many people are involved?" Spider-Man demanded in a low growl.
"Eighteen,and another one hundred for logistical support." the rider gasped.
"Where's your base?"
"A big warehouse on the West Side waterfront, around 23rd Street," the driver responded after pausing briefly to catch his breath. Spider-Man knew that area quite well. It was a short distance from the Village.
"Where did you plant the bombs?" he snapped. "What stations?"
"We don't know," the driver gasped, whimpering like a frightened puppy. "We weren't privy to that information."
"You're lying!" Spider-Man shouted, fighting once again to control the anger that was again building up inside him, anger intensified by a crippling fear that he would not be able to prevent this catastrophe. He wanted nothing more than to reduce these two pigs to pulp with his bare hands, but his rage was tempered by his desire to extract as much information as he could get from them. Struggling to find a way to satisfy these conflicting impulses, Spider-Man decided to test their reactions. Holding his breath to avoid inhaling the stench that surrounded them, he grabbed them and lifted them over his shoulders as if he was going to hurl them into the urban abyss once more.
"Tell me where you planted those bombs right now, or I'll send you on your way to Allah!" he shouted as he turned his head way from them.
"I swear! We don't know!" they both screamed in unison.
" How many devices all together?" Spider-Man barked.
"We really don't know," the driver responded, terrified. The man was clearly frightened out of his wits, notwithstanding his earlier ravings about a world-wide jihad. "We weren't privy to those discussions."
"When?" Spider-Man demanded.
"They've already started placing the devices." the rider replied, reduced to a quivering jelly like his cohort. "They'll probably set them to go off within the next 24 hours."
That answer sent chills up Spider-Man's spine. Reluctantly, he put them down, knowing that this was all the information he was likely to get out of them. Large scale terrorist operations of this nature tended to be highly compartmentalized, with each operative knowing only what was necessary to do his job. Spider-Man did not even bother to ask them about Aziz. For all he knew, they were just carrying out orders and wouldn't have a clue about who gave those orders and why.
The sound of police sirens filtered up from the street below. Spider-Man peered over the retaining wall. From sixty five stories up, he was able to see that the cops had arrived on the scene and were surrounding the wrecked Vulcan 2000.
"All right, let's go!" he said to his captives as he spun another webline, attached it to them, and gently lowered them over the side. When the cord had reached thirty feet in length, he climbed rapidly down with them, using his feet and his left hand to adhere to the side of the building while he held his webline in his right hand.
XXXXXXXXXX
A young, somewhat overzealous police officer spotted Spider-Man crawling down the side of a Midtown skyscraper carrying what appeared to be a large cocoon. "Hold it right there, webhead!" he shouted, drawing his gun.
"Wait a minute, Joe," his older, more seasoned partner said as he grabbed the younger cop's service revolver and shoved it back in its holster. "Good afternoon Spider-Man," he called out calmly and politely, knowing perfectly well that the masked man was on their side. "I'm Officer Paul Davis, and this is Officer Joe Santelle. What do you have for us today?"
Spider-Man deposited his bundle of human garbage onto the sidewalk, leaped off the wall of the building, and landed right in front of the younger officer, who couldn't stop gaping. Flies were already starting to buzz around the two thugs, attracted by aromas that only flies could appreciate.
"Gentlemen," Spider-Man said grimly, addressing both officers, "I'm afraid that I have some very bad news." The cops knew at once that the situation was serious, because the webslinger did not make any of his usual wisecracks.
"These two are part of an Al Qaeda terrorist plot to blow up the New York City subway system." he continued. "They're operating out of a waterfront warehouse just off West 23rd Street. They may have already placed some of the bombs in various subway stops. I wasn't able to find out where or when. That was all I could get out of them."
Both policemen looked stunned.
"What kind of bombs?" Officer Davis asked, an expression of grave concern appearing on his face.
"Radiological," Spider-Man replied, holding back panic, "Dirty bombs."
"He's crazy!" Officer Santelle sneered.
"He seems perfectly rational to me," Officer Davis said. This older cop reminded Spider-Man very much of Robbie Robertson, with his quiet demeanor and determination to get all the facts before jumping to conclusions. "The FBI told us that this was likely to be Al Qaeda's next move." Officer Davis continued. "Dirty bombs aren't that hard to build, and they could be easily hidden."
"So, what do we do?" Santelle asked anxiously, starting to mull over the enormous consequences of failing to stop another terrorist attack.
"I think we'd better take his warning seriously." suggested Davis resolutely.
"Thank you!" a grateful Spider-Man said to the grizzled veteran of the NYPD.
"No, it's we who ought to thank you." Davis responded. "Do you want any kind of assistance?"
Santelle's jaw fell. He could not believe that his partner was actually going to order back-up for this nutcase who thought that every day was Halloween. It was a serious breach of police regulations that would surely invite an inquiry from Internal Affairs.
Noting the shocked expression on his youthful partner's face, Davis smiled. "I'm retiring in two weeks, remember?" he said cheerfully. "By the time Internal Affairs gets around to it, I'll be soaking up the sun in the Virgin Islands." He winked at Spider-Man as a sign of encouragement.
"There are close to one hundred and twenty men involved in this operation," Spider-Man warned Davis. "You'll need lots and lots of back ups. And probably S.W.A.T. units as well." And before Officer Davis could respond, he jumped high into the air, fired a webline, and took off in the direction of the warehouse. The two officers followed his trajectory until he disappeared between two nearby office buildings.
"Okay, Joe, let's turn these guys over to the F.B.I." Davis ordered.
Santelle moved in to collar the suspects. As he got close to them, he got a good whiff. "Phew!" the patrolman said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
XXXXXXXXXX
It was a race against the clock now. Spider-Man had to get to that warehouse as soon as possible if he was to have any hope of uncovering the rest of the plot and saving the city. Once again, he felt himself being crushed under the weight of this awesome, terrible responsibility, a far heavier burden than the wall that he had once kept from falling on Mary Jane. If he failed in this mission, then hundreds of people would perish, thousands more would suffer radiation poisoning, and the economies of the city, the country, and the world would be seriously damaged. He shuddered to think that he stumbled onto the plot only by sheer coincidence. This can't be happening! he despaired.
But as he swung between skyscrapers, a familiar serenity began to settle over him, as it usually did when he was in flight. And then, as he passed by yet another Emma Rose Parfumerie billboard, he heard inside his mind the soft, sweet, musical voice of the red-haired angel who loved him more than anything else on Earth.
Go get 'em tiger.