Post by David on Mar 24, 2009 18:27:44 GMT -5
He sits by himself at a small table of the outdoor trattoria, typically debonair in his white suit and dark glasses, waving his white fedora lazily to fan his face in the heat of the late summer’s day. Despite the sweat he mops from his forehead, he sips espresso, and orders another from the waiter in the Italian patois of Illyria. I wait for a moment, scanning the rest of the piazza just to make sure he isn’t being watched; Charles is a professional, but he’s been out of the game for a long time now--- and with the kind of trouble we know is brewing, I’m not taking any chances.
It is late afternoon, and most the tourists have fled the palazzo for the cool havens of their hotels, or one of the hundreds of churches or museums. A flock of pigeons adorn the statue of the Old Duke, Umberto, who won Illyria’s independence from Italy after the Great War. A few Aussie backpackers consult a guidebook from the shade of Santa Asunta’s covered colonnade across the piazza, and a wizened street-sweeper fusses with a family of cats.
A large bird ghosts over the square, sailing on majestic wings, and lights with a bold nonchalance on the back of Charles’ chair, where he absently feeds it the leftovers of his biscotti, cooing to it. It is a Great Horned Owl: the creature, once brown but now grey, is nearly seventy years old, and I know it well; it, too, is an old comrade.
Hooty eyes the cats prowling the piazza, but obediently stays put.
“Let’s go,” I say to the girl on my arm, leading her out into the open. Katrina Armstrong was most definitely a professional. A few days ago, things got a little hairy for me on a train ride near the Kasnian border--- the Fourth Reich had almost got me that time. But she showed up in her great-grandfather’s re-vamped Gyrosub--- quite unexpectedly!--- and got me out of there. Turns out she was there on orders from General Harrigan, the Pentagon’s liaison to the JSA. Reviving the mantle of Spy Smasher, Katrina is a top operative for the National Security Department, and had been assigned to help me root out the resurgent Nazi threat in Europe.
We must make an unlikely pair to an interested onlooker. I am not particularly tall, my mousy brown hair is shot with gray at the temples, I require my thin wire-rimmed spectacles to see clearly, and my weathered coat and hat could best be described as frumpy, while Katrina would be comfortable on any catwalk of the finest European fashion houses.
Charles hears us coming long before he spots us. Having lost much of his sight decades ago, his other senses have become highly sensitive. Undoubtedly he recognizes my gait, but he cocks his head at Katrina’s unfamiliar approach.
“Buonasera, Wes,” he stands, a droll smile spreading across his smooth, tanned face as he reaches for my hand. “And who is this vision of loveliness at your side?” As we reach the table, he is able to see better through his specially-tinted glasses. With characteristically unabashed boldness, he looks her up and down appreciatively. Charles is a connoisseur of the finer things in life, and Katrina certainly fits that bill. She is the kind of woman most refer to as “statuesque” with platinum blonde hair and eyes like a tempest-tossed sea at midnight. She’s wearing a light silk dress, which blows gently around her perfectly-shaped legs in the breeze coming in off the Adriatic. One finely sculpted eyebrow arches as she allows Charles to take her hand and kiss her fingers, his shaded gaze lingering on her décolletage.
“Dr. Charles McNider, allow me to introduce Katrina Armstrong of the NSA.” I say, certain that Charles would make the connection. He may be a randy silver-haired devil, but he’s sharp.
“Smashing,” Charles drawls, not relinquishing Katrina’s fingers. Nor does she seem to mind, seemingly amused by his frank interest and handsomeness untouched by time. “A very great pleasure to meet you, Ms. Armstrong.”
“Thank you, Dr. McNider. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you; I’ve heard so much about you. And this must be Hooty…?”
“The love of my life.” Charles confides with a sly grin. The owl preens and glares at Katrina.
I clear my throat meaningfully. I want to get down to business. It isn’t often I receive an emergency call from my old friend and comrade, and I’m extremely curious about what he has to say--- not to mention eager to get back on the trail of the Fourth Reich.
We all take our seats, and Charles gestures to the waiter for two more espressos. Across the piazza, the Aussie backpackers had moved on, and the old street-sweeper is too far away to overhear us.
“Charles, I must admit, I was very surprised to get your message. Surely this isn’t a social call, and as you’re retired from our ‘line of work’… Did Carter send you for some reason?” A permanent limp keeps Dr. Midnight from adventuring now, but Charles McNider was as active as ever.
“Carter? No. Actually, he’s resigned as chairman, last I heard. But that’s not why I’m here.” He pauses a moment for the waiter to deliver our drinks, then when he has retreated back inside the café, Charles goes on. “Wes, it’s Otto.”
I frown. Otto could mean only one man, Graf Otto Von Kron, ruler of the small Teutonic principality of Kronstadt, on Illyria’s northern border. A proud sovereign nation, conquered only once before, by the Nazis in 1941. It had been liberated by the Justice Society of America in 1945, and though it was surrounded by many stronger powers, including Markovia and the former Soviet states of Kasnia and Modora, it had remained fiercely independent. Otto von Kron had been a boy then, but he had fought side-by-side with us to free his people and his land, and he had remained a good friend to the JSA ever since.
“A few weeks ago, I got the call that Otto was very ill,” Charles continues. “Not surprising, given his age, but I was asked by the Royal Family to come in to consult, nonetheless--- which I was only too happy to oblige. I still spend summers in Kronbourg, there’s a lovely spa there; have you ever been, my dear?” he smiles pleasantly at Katrina, who smiles back and shakes her head. “Perhaps I can give you a tour one day, then. The hot springs are absolutely delightful. But, of course, this has not been a pleasure trip. Poor Otto is very ill indeed, with an odd degenerative sickness. The family suspects he is being poisoned.”
I feel my eyes narrow, put my elbows on the table-top and rest my chin atop my interlaced hands.
“Of course, they would. You see, dear Otto--- at the tender age of 89--- is engaged to be married!” Charles, no doubt, is not as scandalized as he appears; he himself, though never married, is somewhat older than even that, as am I, our slowed aging the inadvertent side-effect of an old enemy’s chronobomb.
I shrug and sip my espresso. “His wife has been dead twenty years, Charles, and the succession is secured many times over. I’m not sure I see a reason to---.”
“Here’s a picture of his fiancée,” he slaps a German-language newspaper down on the table, and in the black and white photograph, standing next to the besotted Graf von Kron, was the cold, hard beauty of the Contessa Magdalena di Sforza--- the Baroness Blitzkrieg.
I stare at the picture for a moment to be sure, as does Katrina, but there is no doubt: this is the Fourth Reich’s chief assassin, a ruthless speedster and a brutal killer.
“This woman is wanted across Europe; doesn’t Kronstadt have an extradition agreement with Interpol?” asks Katrina.
“She goes by Elektra Kostopoulos, and claims to be from an impoverished aristocratic family of Vlatava,” Charles explains with a sympathetically dubious expression. “Kronstadt is a small country, and out of step with the rest of modern Europe. So far no one has connected their beloved ruler’s glamorous new consort to a Neo-Nazi supervillain. Oh, there was a suspicious journalist, but he… disappeared a few weeks ago.”
I nod, and notice that a new figure has entered the piazza; from this distance, I can see only that it is a man, wandering somewhat aimlessly over the flagstones, moving in the general direction of the trattoria.
“She is actually quite a charming woman, not at all as haughty as she looks,” Charles was explaining to Katrina, “but there is a blithe sense of superiority about her one finds somewhat alarming. Oh, she’s an amiable enough diner companion, and she dotes on Otto---.”
The rest of his words are lost in my shout of warning. The man in the piazza has thrown wide his jacket and I can see his torso is strapped with explosives. Katrina falls on Charles and I upset the table just as a fireball erupts in the ancient square---
Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the stone corridor, the flames of the torch sconces flickering in their wake.
The blond man was clad in a ceremonial green and yellow Reichsmarschall uniform, and wore a grim expression on his chiseled face. At his side, the woman with the honey-blonde braid that hung half-way down her back wore fetishist leather and thigh-high boots over flesh tattooed with Aryan sigils, with a spiked and winged helm. In her hand she carried a long spear: Hjoring, she had named the weapon, “life-drinker”--- it had been a gift from the All-Father himself, and its point never dulled.
“I have had enough of this skulking about in shadows and castles, Krieger,” the Valkyrie said in a frustrated tone to her companion. “But give me leave to take again to the skies and collect men’s souls, and I shall reap a bountiful harvest for Valhalla.” She clawed at the air with preternaturally-long fingernails.
The man who had been known as Captain Nazi since 1942 gave her an amused chuckle that lacked all warmth and mirth. “Patience, Gudra. The time is fast approaching when we shall spread fire and war across the land. But for now, our plans proceed apace. Have no doubt: our Fuhrer will lead us to an Everlasting Reich, and we shall all of us sit at his right hand.”
The Valkyrie grunted and consoled herself with thoughts of battlefields of the coming days.
The two reached their destination. The room was out of place in the stone walls and rush-covered floor of the old castle: it was equipped with the most technologically advanced equipment, with swastika-adorned techs sitting at computer terminals, monitoring and coordinating various operations of the Fourth Reich. Large, flat plasma screens covered the walls, some scrolling data, others displaying news reports from across Europe, Asia and Africa. On one wall was draped an enormous flag, depicting the giant lightning bolt-swastika of the Fourth Reich.
A young officer snapped-to and saluted smartly at their entry, his arm a swift slash in the air before him.
Krieger returned the salute in their Fuhrer’s name and demanded a progress report.
“Operation: Danzig 2.0 is well underway, Herr Krieger. Explosions reported in Illyria, Markovia, and Kasnia.”
Captain Nazi nodded; all was going as expected. “I trust no one has connected us with the suicide bombings?”
“No, Herr Krieger.”
“Excellent. The Red Panzer factories?”
“Herr Von Bach reports operations at 82%,” the young officer looked nervous at the flicker of annoyance on Krieger’s face. “The remaining four factories are operating at more than 110% to compensate for the one in Ostenburgh that Sandman and Spy Smasher destroyed last week.”
“Masterman has much to answer for,” rumbled Captain Nazi. The Fuhrer had not been pleased by the American supremacist’s failure against the damned JSAers; still, Von Bach had been instrumental in securing the Rocket Red tech from Pokolistan, and the modifications to the Red Panzer armor had been his idea…
“Tell him I said we must double production. The Fuhrer will not tolerate delays to his timetable. Now, get me General Zahl.”
The young officer saluted again, and signaled to a tech. A wall-sized screen flickered and the news-report was replaced by the sour visage of a man wizened with age and riddled with malice. He wore a captain’s cap, harkening back to the days he commanded U-boats for Adolf Hitler, and a monocle, behind which glared a malevolent eye.
“Heil, Herr Krieger!” General Zahl’s voice cackled over the speakers, his salute as crisp and as earnest as it had been in the days of the Third Reich.
Captain Nazi returned the salute, but wasted no time on pleasantries.
“The time grows short, Hermann, and the Fuhrer desires a progress report.”
“The stage is set, mein freund. I am in secret communication with the Church of Blood, and feel certain that they shall rally to our cause, as long as they are left in power in Zandia.”
“That may not suit our purpose,” grumbled Captain Nazi; he found any dealings with the cult distasteful in the least. “The Church is not well-liked amongst our more vital supporters.”
“No matter, Albrecht,” No one else would have gotten away with using Captain Nazi’s first name; but the two were longtime comrades, brothers in arms and baptized by blood. “They will be sufficient to overthrow the cabal in Gamenn, and we can always deal with them afterward.”
Nazi grunted. “See that we do. Now, how proceeds Project Herrenvolk?”
A sickly light gleamed in the old war criminal’s eye. “Mein freund, we have made a breakthrough…”
The explosion in the piazza in Illyria, which demolished an ancient church, and a youth hostel, killing 23 people, was not the only attack that day. Suicide bombers also struck in Kasopolis, capital of Kasnia and Petrovna, seat of the Queen of Markovia. While no terrorist group took responsibility, in all three instances forensic evidence pointed to the only country to share a border with all three countries: Kronstadt.
“And that’s not the most peculiar thing,” the image of General Harrigan tells us from the monitor screen in the cockpit of Spy Smasher’s Gyrosub. “Interpol reports that the DNA of all three of the suicide bombers is identical.”
The ‘sub hovers high over the purple waves of the Adriatic, just another star twinkling in the night sky. Shaken but unhurt, Charles had caught a train back to Kronbourg, fussing over Hooty, who had some feathers singed. But he was expected at the bedside of our old friend, the Graf, and left just in time, too, as the small army of Illyria had been put on high alert and had closed the border that night.
“Same family?” Katrina asks the image of her boss, the JSA’s own government liaison.
I know better. “No, they were the same person. Duploids of Der Sturmer.” The stormtrooper of the Fourth Reich. I had tangled with him in Pokolistan, and both Spy Smasher and I had encountered him in Ostenburgh where we had destroyed the Red Panzer factory. The stormtrooper had the uncanny ability of replicating himself identically, so the loss of three of him was hardly a sacrifice.
“Undoubtedly.” Harrigan agrees with me. “So the Fourth Reich orchestrates an organized attack on the states bordering Kronstadt, and then manipulates the evidence to suggest that Kronstadt is an aggressor…?”
“They’re fomenting a war,” Katrina’s flashes me a concerned look. “Sandman and I have just had a report that someone who may very well be the Baroness Blitzkrieg has wormed her way into court at Kronbourg. In fact, she is about to become the Graffin Von Kron.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Harrigan frowns deeply, and he has never looked more like my own old wartime comrade--- his grandfather--- Hop Harrigan. “Marriage into a European royal house, especially one that is head of state, gives the Fourth Reich a legitimate base of power. Get to Kronbourg. If Elektra Kostopoulos is indeed Magdalena di Sforza, bring her in. If she marries the old count, I don’t give him a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving the honeymoon…”
“My dear Charles, you look an absolute fright!”
Charles McNider looked up from his patient as Elektra Kostopoulos swept into the room. The woman was beautiful, there was no denying: her hair was a soft ebon wave, and her dress was cut to fit the enticing curves of her form so perfectly that Charles McNider never looked upon her but lost his breath in appreciation.
But, however honeyed her tone, and however solicitous her expression, he knew there lurked in her breast the heart of a viper, perpetually poised to strike.
He smiled gratefully to her as she fussed over him, gently touching the scrapes and bruises on his face as he tended to Otto. His patient was slumbering fitfully, tucked into the covers of his ornate bed, his breath and pulse both weak.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, Fraulein Kostopoulos,” he waved away her concern and consulted the monitors by the Graf Von Kron’s bedside. “I am very anxious for dear Otto. I can’t seem to stabilize his blood pressure, and his white blood cell count is dangerously low---.”
The woman’s beautiful face puckered into a pout, and she laid a hand on Charles’ arm. “Well, no wonder: you must be exhausted after your ordeal in Illyria yesterday. Ghastly business, there. And to think the terrorists came from right here…!”
“No, that isn’t what I meant,” Charles insisted. “I’m fine, but Otto is not responding to---.”
“Fortunately, I’ve brought with me some relief for you. A brilliant physician who comes highly recommended.”
Charles noticed that Elektra Kostopoulos was not alone. A woman with iron-grey hair, pursed thin lips and thick oversized glasses accompanied her. There was something familiar about her, Charles noted with a start.
“Allow me to introduce Dr. Gerta Von Gunther. She will be looking after Otto while you recuperate.”
“Von Gunther… I knew a Dr. Paula Von Gunther a long time ago...”
“My mother.” Said the severe-looking woman, with no discernible emotion or change of expression.
That was all Charles needed to hear. “Ma’am, I really must protest,” he turned his dark glasses back to the amused Elektra Kostopoulos. “Otto’s condition is serious and deteriorating. It is his wish and the wishes of his family that I treat him, and surely that must take precedence.”
“Nonsense,” Elektra Kostopoulos swatted at him playfully, seeming for all the world like she was enjoying herself. “You’re in no condition yourself to tend to someone else. Look at you, you need rest and pampering. Go to the spa until you get your strength back, and then you can consult with Dr. Von Gunther---.”
“I am perfectly fine, madam,” Charles said hotly, and with one hand steadying himself on his walking stick, he pointed an accusatory finger at the non-plussed Gerta Von Gunther. “And that woman’s mother was a Nazi war criminal--- and no friend to the House of Kron!”
Looking aghast, Elektra Kostopoulos looked from Charles to Gerta and back to Charles. “Really?” She put one dainty hand to her flushed and heaving bosom. “Scandalous!” she admitted with a trace of conspiratorial amusement.
Charles never saw the blow coming: it took the wind out of him and sent him hurtling backward, crashing into a bank of sensitive medical monitors and falling to the ground, his glasses flying off his face--- without them, he was blind. Stunned, but his old reflexes kicking in, he pulled himself to his feet and reached deep into a secret pocket in his coat, his fingers quickly finding the familiar, smooth surface of what he was looking for.
“I didn’t want to do this, Charles,” came the voice of “Elektra Kostopoulos,” the sound of her high-heels on the flagstones telling her approach. “But I can’t let you live now…”
Charles threw the black-out bomb against the hard stone floor, and the detonation rocked the room. Black, billowing darkness engulfed them all, and Charles McNider could see again; both women coughed and choked, taken completely off-guard, stumbling blindly. Clutching his cane like a bat, he swung it at the Baroness, striking her a glancing blow. With a soft cry, she fell. Barreling over Gerta Von Gunther, Charles swept up his glasses and rushed out the door.
He staggered down the castle hallway as quickly as he could, their screams muffled behind him, and called urgently for the Royal Guard. Rounding a corner, he was brought up short by the imposing figure of a man, not in the colors of the royal house of Kron, but in the insignia and Prussian blue of a Major of the Wehrmacht.
The unexpected sight of this man caused Charles to hesitate only for a moment--- he had, of course, never expected to see this old foe ever again!--- but that was enough. Light flashed off the cold steel prosthetic that served as a hand for the Iron Major, as it came crashing down, upon Charles McNider’s head, felling him.
Slumped on the floor, his vision swimming, he scrambled in his pocket for another black-out bomb, but was too disoriented to find one. The Iron Major loomed over him, unholstering a sidearm.
“Wait!”
Baroness Blitzkrieg was there, skidding to a halt and looking furious. She knelt by Charles, knocked off his glasses and seized him by the hair, pulling his head up to get a good look at him.
“That was a black-out bomb back there, McNider,” her stormy eyes roamed over his face piercingly. “You were Dr. Midnight of the JSA, weren’t you?”
Charles said nothing, his head throbbing. There was blood in his eyes, but he was blind again anyway. Abruptly, his head was dashed against the wall, making him cry out. Pain stabbed his brain.
“I’ll take your silence as acknowledgement.” The Baroness sounded annoyed. “No matter: there is nothing you or your famed allies can do to stop what we’ve put into motion. A new Reich is rising, and this tide will not be turned.”
“The JSA will stop you.” Charles McNider told her, fixing her with his sightless eyes. “We did it before, we’ll do it again.”
She allowed herself a low, mirthless laugh. “You won’t do anything, my dear Charles, ever again. First blood goes to the Fourth Reich.” With that she released him and stood, stepping aside for the Iron Major.
The Lugar in his hand roared and blood sprayed across the wall of Castle Kron.
Outside, a grey Great Horned Owl circling overhead let loose a piteous screech…
I wake with a startled cry, drenched in sweat, my heart racing.
Around me, the Gyrosub is quiet; the running lights are dimmed, and the only sound is the rhythmic pulse of the active sonar. The versatile craft cuts gently beneath the waves of the Kas River, sneaking into Kronstadt on automatic pilot. Katrina does not stir in her own bunk, untroubled by the nightmares that plague me.
As far back as I can remember, I dreamed vivid, sleep-destroying dreams. As a young man, I had traveled extensively in the East, hoping to find a way to calm my fevered sub-conscious, to enjoy the sweet oblivion all men are heir to. I learned… other things. And after my father died, leaving me a fortune he accumulated by shrewd investments, and the world plunged faster and deeper into the darkness and horror of war, I found I could no longer stay in bed at night while men with black souls and evil intent walked so freely among us. So I became the Sandman, and delivered to them a slumber that seemed forever denied to me.
Only my beloved Dian soothed the insistent, destructive compulsion. Her soft, warm body in the bed next to me gave me an anchor, a psychic tether stronger even than the call of justice that did not sleep.
But Dian was gone now (I feel her absence most keenly in the night when the dreams come), and the visions I see now remind me of those dread-filled early days, when all the world seemed to hold its breath, poised on the edge of a precipice, while the storm clouds gather…
Tonight, I had dreamed of Dr. Midnight. Cultured, intelligent Charles McNider, a man who wanted to use his gifts to heal the world, to see the beauty in all men and women. But the world was uglier and sicker than Charles ever knew--- and the condition was terminal.
Sometimes my dreams are clear, prescient warnings, an ironic gift from Morpheus, driving me from my soaked bedclothes and into the night. And sometimes, like tonight’s, they are a chaotic mélange of images and feelings, maddeningly imprecise but pregnant with portent. More often than not, these dreams leave me frightened and confused, struggling to ascribe meaning…
Charles McNider, Dr. Midnight, is dead. I know it, like I know the moon shines somewhere overhead, though its light cannot pierce the depths I travel now. My old friend, my comrade in a never-ending war for justice, has gone to his final rest. I know, too--- I can almost hear his voice crying out to me, his shaded gaze beseeching me--- that he has been murdered.
Charles McNider should have died in his bed, at peace and surrounded by loved ones. He’d fought the good fight for a long time. He bled for it. He had earned a gentle easing from this world of pain and depravity. And someone had denied that to him.
The Fourth Reich.
We thought we snuffed out the Nazis long ago, but the evil that men do does not die with them…
I lay in my bunk, wide awake, my chest heaving. There will be no sleep for me for a long time.
It is late afternoon, and most the tourists have fled the palazzo for the cool havens of their hotels, or one of the hundreds of churches or museums. A flock of pigeons adorn the statue of the Old Duke, Umberto, who won Illyria’s independence from Italy after the Great War. A few Aussie backpackers consult a guidebook from the shade of Santa Asunta’s covered colonnade across the piazza, and a wizened street-sweeper fusses with a family of cats.
A large bird ghosts over the square, sailing on majestic wings, and lights with a bold nonchalance on the back of Charles’ chair, where he absently feeds it the leftovers of his biscotti, cooing to it. It is a Great Horned Owl: the creature, once brown but now grey, is nearly seventy years old, and I know it well; it, too, is an old comrade.
Hooty eyes the cats prowling the piazza, but obediently stays put.
“Let’s go,” I say to the girl on my arm, leading her out into the open. Katrina Armstrong was most definitely a professional. A few days ago, things got a little hairy for me on a train ride near the Kasnian border--- the Fourth Reich had almost got me that time. But she showed up in her great-grandfather’s re-vamped Gyrosub--- quite unexpectedly!--- and got me out of there. Turns out she was there on orders from General Harrigan, the Pentagon’s liaison to the JSA. Reviving the mantle of Spy Smasher, Katrina is a top operative for the National Security Department, and had been assigned to help me root out the resurgent Nazi threat in Europe.
We must make an unlikely pair to an interested onlooker. I am not particularly tall, my mousy brown hair is shot with gray at the temples, I require my thin wire-rimmed spectacles to see clearly, and my weathered coat and hat could best be described as frumpy, while Katrina would be comfortable on any catwalk of the finest European fashion houses.
Charles hears us coming long before he spots us. Having lost much of his sight decades ago, his other senses have become highly sensitive. Undoubtedly he recognizes my gait, but he cocks his head at Katrina’s unfamiliar approach.
“Buonasera, Wes,” he stands, a droll smile spreading across his smooth, tanned face as he reaches for my hand. “And who is this vision of loveliness at your side?” As we reach the table, he is able to see better through his specially-tinted glasses. With characteristically unabashed boldness, he looks her up and down appreciatively. Charles is a connoisseur of the finer things in life, and Katrina certainly fits that bill. She is the kind of woman most refer to as “statuesque” with platinum blonde hair and eyes like a tempest-tossed sea at midnight. She’s wearing a light silk dress, which blows gently around her perfectly-shaped legs in the breeze coming in off the Adriatic. One finely sculpted eyebrow arches as she allows Charles to take her hand and kiss her fingers, his shaded gaze lingering on her décolletage.
“Dr. Charles McNider, allow me to introduce Katrina Armstrong of the NSA.” I say, certain that Charles would make the connection. He may be a randy silver-haired devil, but he’s sharp.
“Smashing,” Charles drawls, not relinquishing Katrina’s fingers. Nor does she seem to mind, seemingly amused by his frank interest and handsomeness untouched by time. “A very great pleasure to meet you, Ms. Armstrong.”
“Thank you, Dr. McNider. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you; I’ve heard so much about you. And this must be Hooty…?”
“The love of my life.” Charles confides with a sly grin. The owl preens and glares at Katrina.
I clear my throat meaningfully. I want to get down to business. It isn’t often I receive an emergency call from my old friend and comrade, and I’m extremely curious about what he has to say--- not to mention eager to get back on the trail of the Fourth Reich.
We all take our seats, and Charles gestures to the waiter for two more espressos. Across the piazza, the Aussie backpackers had moved on, and the old street-sweeper is too far away to overhear us.
“Charles, I must admit, I was very surprised to get your message. Surely this isn’t a social call, and as you’re retired from our ‘line of work’… Did Carter send you for some reason?” A permanent limp keeps Dr. Midnight from adventuring now, but Charles McNider was as active as ever.
“Carter? No. Actually, he’s resigned as chairman, last I heard. But that’s not why I’m here.” He pauses a moment for the waiter to deliver our drinks, then when he has retreated back inside the café, Charles goes on. “Wes, it’s Otto.”
I frown. Otto could mean only one man, Graf Otto Von Kron, ruler of the small Teutonic principality of Kronstadt, on Illyria’s northern border. A proud sovereign nation, conquered only once before, by the Nazis in 1941. It had been liberated by the Justice Society of America in 1945, and though it was surrounded by many stronger powers, including Markovia and the former Soviet states of Kasnia and Modora, it had remained fiercely independent. Otto von Kron had been a boy then, but he had fought side-by-side with us to free his people and his land, and he had remained a good friend to the JSA ever since.
“A few weeks ago, I got the call that Otto was very ill,” Charles continues. “Not surprising, given his age, but I was asked by the Royal Family to come in to consult, nonetheless--- which I was only too happy to oblige. I still spend summers in Kronbourg, there’s a lovely spa there; have you ever been, my dear?” he smiles pleasantly at Katrina, who smiles back and shakes her head. “Perhaps I can give you a tour one day, then. The hot springs are absolutely delightful. But, of course, this has not been a pleasure trip. Poor Otto is very ill indeed, with an odd degenerative sickness. The family suspects he is being poisoned.”
I feel my eyes narrow, put my elbows on the table-top and rest my chin atop my interlaced hands.
“Of course, they would. You see, dear Otto--- at the tender age of 89--- is engaged to be married!” Charles, no doubt, is not as scandalized as he appears; he himself, though never married, is somewhat older than even that, as am I, our slowed aging the inadvertent side-effect of an old enemy’s chronobomb.
I shrug and sip my espresso. “His wife has been dead twenty years, Charles, and the succession is secured many times over. I’m not sure I see a reason to---.”
“Here’s a picture of his fiancée,” he slaps a German-language newspaper down on the table, and in the black and white photograph, standing next to the besotted Graf von Kron, was the cold, hard beauty of the Contessa Magdalena di Sforza--- the Baroness Blitzkrieg.
I stare at the picture for a moment to be sure, as does Katrina, but there is no doubt: this is the Fourth Reich’s chief assassin, a ruthless speedster and a brutal killer.
“This woman is wanted across Europe; doesn’t Kronstadt have an extradition agreement with Interpol?” asks Katrina.
“She goes by Elektra Kostopoulos, and claims to be from an impoverished aristocratic family of Vlatava,” Charles explains with a sympathetically dubious expression. “Kronstadt is a small country, and out of step with the rest of modern Europe. So far no one has connected their beloved ruler’s glamorous new consort to a Neo-Nazi supervillain. Oh, there was a suspicious journalist, but he… disappeared a few weeks ago.”
I nod, and notice that a new figure has entered the piazza; from this distance, I can see only that it is a man, wandering somewhat aimlessly over the flagstones, moving in the general direction of the trattoria.
“She is actually quite a charming woman, not at all as haughty as she looks,” Charles was explaining to Katrina, “but there is a blithe sense of superiority about her one finds somewhat alarming. Oh, she’s an amiable enough diner companion, and she dotes on Otto---.”
The rest of his words are lost in my shout of warning. The man in the piazza has thrown wide his jacket and I can see his torso is strapped with explosives. Katrina falls on Charles and I upset the table just as a fireball erupts in the ancient square---
JSA: Classified
Issue #1: “The Rise of the Fourth Reich, Part One!”
Written by David Charlton
Art by Jamie Rimmer
Sequential Page by Joey Jarin
Edited by David Charlton
Issue #1: “The Rise of the Fourth Reich, Part One!”
Written by David Charlton
Art by Jamie Rimmer
Sequential Page by Joey Jarin
Edited by David Charlton
Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the stone corridor, the flames of the torch sconces flickering in their wake.
The blond man was clad in a ceremonial green and yellow Reichsmarschall uniform, and wore a grim expression on his chiseled face. At his side, the woman with the honey-blonde braid that hung half-way down her back wore fetishist leather and thigh-high boots over flesh tattooed with Aryan sigils, with a spiked and winged helm. In her hand she carried a long spear: Hjoring, she had named the weapon, “life-drinker”--- it had been a gift from the All-Father himself, and its point never dulled.
“I have had enough of this skulking about in shadows and castles, Krieger,” the Valkyrie said in a frustrated tone to her companion. “But give me leave to take again to the skies and collect men’s souls, and I shall reap a bountiful harvest for Valhalla.” She clawed at the air with preternaturally-long fingernails.
The man who had been known as Captain Nazi since 1942 gave her an amused chuckle that lacked all warmth and mirth. “Patience, Gudra. The time is fast approaching when we shall spread fire and war across the land. But for now, our plans proceed apace. Have no doubt: our Fuhrer will lead us to an Everlasting Reich, and we shall all of us sit at his right hand.”
The Valkyrie grunted and consoled herself with thoughts of battlefields of the coming days.
The two reached their destination. The room was out of place in the stone walls and rush-covered floor of the old castle: it was equipped with the most technologically advanced equipment, with swastika-adorned techs sitting at computer terminals, monitoring and coordinating various operations of the Fourth Reich. Large, flat plasma screens covered the walls, some scrolling data, others displaying news reports from across Europe, Asia and Africa. On one wall was draped an enormous flag, depicting the giant lightning bolt-swastika of the Fourth Reich.
A young officer snapped-to and saluted smartly at their entry, his arm a swift slash in the air before him.
Krieger returned the salute in their Fuhrer’s name and demanded a progress report.
“Operation: Danzig 2.0 is well underway, Herr Krieger. Explosions reported in Illyria, Markovia, and Kasnia.”
Captain Nazi nodded; all was going as expected. “I trust no one has connected us with the suicide bombings?”
“No, Herr Krieger.”
“Excellent. The Red Panzer factories?”
“Herr Von Bach reports operations at 82%,” the young officer looked nervous at the flicker of annoyance on Krieger’s face. “The remaining four factories are operating at more than 110% to compensate for the one in Ostenburgh that Sandman and Spy Smasher destroyed last week.”
“Masterman has much to answer for,” rumbled Captain Nazi. The Fuhrer had not been pleased by the American supremacist’s failure against the damned JSAers; still, Von Bach had been instrumental in securing the Rocket Red tech from Pokolistan, and the modifications to the Red Panzer armor had been his idea…
“Tell him I said we must double production. The Fuhrer will not tolerate delays to his timetable. Now, get me General Zahl.”
The young officer saluted again, and signaled to a tech. A wall-sized screen flickered and the news-report was replaced by the sour visage of a man wizened with age and riddled with malice. He wore a captain’s cap, harkening back to the days he commanded U-boats for Adolf Hitler, and a monocle, behind which glared a malevolent eye.
“Heil, Herr Krieger!” General Zahl’s voice cackled over the speakers, his salute as crisp and as earnest as it had been in the days of the Third Reich.
Captain Nazi returned the salute, but wasted no time on pleasantries.
“The time grows short, Hermann, and the Fuhrer desires a progress report.”
“The stage is set, mein freund. I am in secret communication with the Church of Blood, and feel certain that they shall rally to our cause, as long as they are left in power in Zandia.”
“That may not suit our purpose,” grumbled Captain Nazi; he found any dealings with the cult distasteful in the least. “The Church is not well-liked amongst our more vital supporters.”
“No matter, Albrecht,” No one else would have gotten away with using Captain Nazi’s first name; but the two were longtime comrades, brothers in arms and baptized by blood. “They will be sufficient to overthrow the cabal in Gamenn, and we can always deal with them afterward.”
Nazi grunted. “See that we do. Now, how proceeds Project Herrenvolk?”
A sickly light gleamed in the old war criminal’s eye. “Mein freund, we have made a breakthrough…”
*******
The explosion in the piazza in Illyria, which demolished an ancient church, and a youth hostel, killing 23 people, was not the only attack that day. Suicide bombers also struck in Kasopolis, capital of Kasnia and Petrovna, seat of the Queen of Markovia. While no terrorist group took responsibility, in all three instances forensic evidence pointed to the only country to share a border with all three countries: Kronstadt.
“And that’s not the most peculiar thing,” the image of General Harrigan tells us from the monitor screen in the cockpit of Spy Smasher’s Gyrosub. “Interpol reports that the DNA of all three of the suicide bombers is identical.”
The ‘sub hovers high over the purple waves of the Adriatic, just another star twinkling in the night sky. Shaken but unhurt, Charles had caught a train back to Kronbourg, fussing over Hooty, who had some feathers singed. But he was expected at the bedside of our old friend, the Graf, and left just in time, too, as the small army of Illyria had been put on high alert and had closed the border that night.
“Same family?” Katrina asks the image of her boss, the JSA’s own government liaison.
I know better. “No, they were the same person. Duploids of Der Sturmer.” The stormtrooper of the Fourth Reich. I had tangled with him in Pokolistan, and both Spy Smasher and I had encountered him in Ostenburgh where we had destroyed the Red Panzer factory. The stormtrooper had the uncanny ability of replicating himself identically, so the loss of three of him was hardly a sacrifice.
“Undoubtedly.” Harrigan agrees with me. “So the Fourth Reich orchestrates an organized attack on the states bordering Kronstadt, and then manipulates the evidence to suggest that Kronstadt is an aggressor…?”
“They’re fomenting a war,” Katrina’s flashes me a concerned look. “Sandman and I have just had a report that someone who may very well be the Baroness Blitzkrieg has wormed her way into court at Kronbourg. In fact, she is about to become the Graffin Von Kron.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Harrigan frowns deeply, and he has never looked more like my own old wartime comrade--- his grandfather--- Hop Harrigan. “Marriage into a European royal house, especially one that is head of state, gives the Fourth Reich a legitimate base of power. Get to Kronbourg. If Elektra Kostopoulos is indeed Magdalena di Sforza, bring her in. If she marries the old count, I don’t give him a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving the honeymoon…”
*******
“My dear Charles, you look an absolute fright!”
Charles McNider looked up from his patient as Elektra Kostopoulos swept into the room. The woman was beautiful, there was no denying: her hair was a soft ebon wave, and her dress was cut to fit the enticing curves of her form so perfectly that Charles McNider never looked upon her but lost his breath in appreciation.
But, however honeyed her tone, and however solicitous her expression, he knew there lurked in her breast the heart of a viper, perpetually poised to strike.
He smiled gratefully to her as she fussed over him, gently touching the scrapes and bruises on his face as he tended to Otto. His patient was slumbering fitfully, tucked into the covers of his ornate bed, his breath and pulse both weak.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, Fraulein Kostopoulos,” he waved away her concern and consulted the monitors by the Graf Von Kron’s bedside. “I am very anxious for dear Otto. I can’t seem to stabilize his blood pressure, and his white blood cell count is dangerously low---.”
The woman’s beautiful face puckered into a pout, and she laid a hand on Charles’ arm. “Well, no wonder: you must be exhausted after your ordeal in Illyria yesterday. Ghastly business, there. And to think the terrorists came from right here…!”
“No, that isn’t what I meant,” Charles insisted. “I’m fine, but Otto is not responding to---.”
“Fortunately, I’ve brought with me some relief for you. A brilliant physician who comes highly recommended.”
Charles noticed that Elektra Kostopoulos was not alone. A woman with iron-grey hair, pursed thin lips and thick oversized glasses accompanied her. There was something familiar about her, Charles noted with a start.
“Allow me to introduce Dr. Gerta Von Gunther. She will be looking after Otto while you recuperate.”
“Von Gunther… I knew a Dr. Paula Von Gunther a long time ago...”
“My mother.” Said the severe-looking woman, with no discernible emotion or change of expression.
That was all Charles needed to hear. “Ma’am, I really must protest,” he turned his dark glasses back to the amused Elektra Kostopoulos. “Otto’s condition is serious and deteriorating. It is his wish and the wishes of his family that I treat him, and surely that must take precedence.”
“Nonsense,” Elektra Kostopoulos swatted at him playfully, seeming for all the world like she was enjoying herself. “You’re in no condition yourself to tend to someone else. Look at you, you need rest and pampering. Go to the spa until you get your strength back, and then you can consult with Dr. Von Gunther---.”
“I am perfectly fine, madam,” Charles said hotly, and with one hand steadying himself on his walking stick, he pointed an accusatory finger at the non-plussed Gerta Von Gunther. “And that woman’s mother was a Nazi war criminal--- and no friend to the House of Kron!”
Looking aghast, Elektra Kostopoulos looked from Charles to Gerta and back to Charles. “Really?” She put one dainty hand to her flushed and heaving bosom. “Scandalous!” she admitted with a trace of conspiratorial amusement.
Charles never saw the blow coming: it took the wind out of him and sent him hurtling backward, crashing into a bank of sensitive medical monitors and falling to the ground, his glasses flying off his face--- without them, he was blind. Stunned, but his old reflexes kicking in, he pulled himself to his feet and reached deep into a secret pocket in his coat, his fingers quickly finding the familiar, smooth surface of what he was looking for.
“I didn’t want to do this, Charles,” came the voice of “Elektra Kostopoulos,” the sound of her high-heels on the flagstones telling her approach. “But I can’t let you live now…”
Charles threw the black-out bomb against the hard stone floor, and the detonation rocked the room. Black, billowing darkness engulfed them all, and Charles McNider could see again; both women coughed and choked, taken completely off-guard, stumbling blindly. Clutching his cane like a bat, he swung it at the Baroness, striking her a glancing blow. With a soft cry, she fell. Barreling over Gerta Von Gunther, Charles swept up his glasses and rushed out the door.
He staggered down the castle hallway as quickly as he could, their screams muffled behind him, and called urgently for the Royal Guard. Rounding a corner, he was brought up short by the imposing figure of a man, not in the colors of the royal house of Kron, but in the insignia and Prussian blue of a Major of the Wehrmacht.
The unexpected sight of this man caused Charles to hesitate only for a moment--- he had, of course, never expected to see this old foe ever again!--- but that was enough. Light flashed off the cold steel prosthetic that served as a hand for the Iron Major, as it came crashing down, upon Charles McNider’s head, felling him.
Slumped on the floor, his vision swimming, he scrambled in his pocket for another black-out bomb, but was too disoriented to find one. The Iron Major loomed over him, unholstering a sidearm.
“Wait!”
Baroness Blitzkrieg was there, skidding to a halt and looking furious. She knelt by Charles, knocked off his glasses and seized him by the hair, pulling his head up to get a good look at him.
“That was a black-out bomb back there, McNider,” her stormy eyes roamed over his face piercingly. “You were Dr. Midnight of the JSA, weren’t you?”
Charles said nothing, his head throbbing. There was blood in his eyes, but he was blind again anyway. Abruptly, his head was dashed against the wall, making him cry out. Pain stabbed his brain.
“I’ll take your silence as acknowledgement.” The Baroness sounded annoyed. “No matter: there is nothing you or your famed allies can do to stop what we’ve put into motion. A new Reich is rising, and this tide will not be turned.”
“The JSA will stop you.” Charles McNider told her, fixing her with his sightless eyes. “We did it before, we’ll do it again.”
She allowed herself a low, mirthless laugh. “You won’t do anything, my dear Charles, ever again. First blood goes to the Fourth Reich.” With that she released him and stood, stepping aside for the Iron Major.
The Lugar in his hand roared and blood sprayed across the wall of Castle Kron.
Outside, a grey Great Horned Owl circling overhead let loose a piteous screech…
*******
I wake with a startled cry, drenched in sweat, my heart racing.
Around me, the Gyrosub is quiet; the running lights are dimmed, and the only sound is the rhythmic pulse of the active sonar. The versatile craft cuts gently beneath the waves of the Kas River, sneaking into Kronstadt on automatic pilot. Katrina does not stir in her own bunk, untroubled by the nightmares that plague me.
As far back as I can remember, I dreamed vivid, sleep-destroying dreams. As a young man, I had traveled extensively in the East, hoping to find a way to calm my fevered sub-conscious, to enjoy the sweet oblivion all men are heir to. I learned… other things. And after my father died, leaving me a fortune he accumulated by shrewd investments, and the world plunged faster and deeper into the darkness and horror of war, I found I could no longer stay in bed at night while men with black souls and evil intent walked so freely among us. So I became the Sandman, and delivered to them a slumber that seemed forever denied to me.
Only my beloved Dian soothed the insistent, destructive compulsion. Her soft, warm body in the bed next to me gave me an anchor, a psychic tether stronger even than the call of justice that did not sleep.
But Dian was gone now (I feel her absence most keenly in the night when the dreams come), and the visions I see now remind me of those dread-filled early days, when all the world seemed to hold its breath, poised on the edge of a precipice, while the storm clouds gather…
Tonight, I had dreamed of Dr. Midnight. Cultured, intelligent Charles McNider, a man who wanted to use his gifts to heal the world, to see the beauty in all men and women. But the world was uglier and sicker than Charles ever knew--- and the condition was terminal.
Sometimes my dreams are clear, prescient warnings, an ironic gift from Morpheus, driving me from my soaked bedclothes and into the night. And sometimes, like tonight’s, they are a chaotic mélange of images and feelings, maddeningly imprecise but pregnant with portent. More often than not, these dreams leave me frightened and confused, struggling to ascribe meaning…
Charles McNider, Dr. Midnight, is dead. I know it, like I know the moon shines somewhere overhead, though its light cannot pierce the depths I travel now. My old friend, my comrade in a never-ending war for justice, has gone to his final rest. I know, too--- I can almost hear his voice crying out to me, his shaded gaze beseeching me--- that he has been murdered.
Charles McNider should have died in his bed, at peace and surrounded by loved ones. He’d fought the good fight for a long time. He bled for it. He had earned a gentle easing from this world of pain and depravity. And someone had denied that to him.
The Fourth Reich.
We thought we snuffed out the Nazis long ago, but the evil that men do does not die with them…
I lay in my bunk, wide awake, my chest heaving. There will be no sleep for me for a long time.
TO BE CONTINUED
