Part Twenty-Four
The sharp clicking sound of steel handcuffs locking into place around her slim wrists caused sweat to erupt on her forehead and she began to tremble unceasingly. The cold metal felt both brittle and damning simultaneously.
A fresh-faced young, police officer, one of Metropolis finest, led her to his black and white patrol car. Actually blushing, the youngster refused to look at her, too shame-faced to see a famous newspaper’s living icon’s reputation wholly destroyed. Gingerly, he helped her into the backseat, taking pains that her head would not hit the vehicle’s side. The sour smell of the car twisted up her nose like a dead rat and burrowed into her sinuses, clearly it had been awhile since the unit had been thoroughly cleaned.
With an unladylike grunt, she slid over cheap blue and grey automobile upholstery to make room for her partner who was being pushed unceremoniously into the car. Apparently the young officer’s partner did not care who was wearing his handcuffs and what his position in the city had been mere minutes before. In the veteran cop’s mind, her partner was another white collar criminal, caught with his greedy fingers in the corporate cookie jar.
Outside, a frittering crowd of media locust had trailed them out of the building and now formed a semi-circle around the car. Several of them fired off questions, while photographers stuck lenses against the window of the patrol car, demanding the occupants turn to face them. Among the horde of reporters, both print and Television, she saw Peggy Becker, furiously writing with a red pencil stub into a dirty tan colored notebook, no doubt trying to get all the details of their arrest. Not that it mattered, nine times out of ten the lazy woman never did any research and messed up the facts. It was a miracle The Daily Planet hadn’t been sued because of her ineptitude.
She growled to her partner in a pique of anger, “What’s that tenth-rate, off-the-rack excuse for a gossip columnist doing? They should have at least sent a seasoned professional like Catherine Grant to get the story. She’d be unbiased and gets the facts straight!”
Beyond the cluster of hungry media were their co-workers; among them were shocked friends, who found it impossible to believe what was taking place.
How had this happened? She should be right there at the head of the pack, asking intrusive questions. Not the one going to jail.
The man by her side ignored the comment and the noisy throng and as the car pulled away from their former place of employment, he continued staring through the dirty window, as if the passing cityscape was the universe’s center. Of course he didn’t have to worry she mused; having access to resources no one was aware of. It was a sure bet by this time tomorrow he would be on the other side of the Earth setting up a new identity.
A thought stuck in her mind like a hangnail caught up in a pair of new silk stockings; would he take her with him?
Minutes passed and she thought that if they did not reach the precinct soon the dank smell of sweat mixed with gym socks would force her to vomit all over the floor, adding just that much more to the existing stench.
Suddenly they turned the corner and she never thought the sight of Inspector Henderson’s precinct would fill her with profound relief and heart wrenching dread. How could she face the laconic police officer?
Just than the object of her thoughts came into view. Standing on the steps was Henderson, his long dour face an unreadable disguise. When the vehicle rolled to a stop, incredibly, his face broke into a smile, the likes of which she had never seen. Than he did something even stranger, he skipped down the wide grey concrete steps; the man was actually giddy with anticipation! When he reached the car he grabbed the handle and pulled. Her partner turned his body and shoved his manacled wrists in the cop’s face. “Get these off!” He demanded.
Without saying a word, Henderson produced a key and unlocked the steel impediments. Her partner exited the backseat and turned to look at her shocked expression. He smiled and stood up, she watched him reach into his jacket pocket and pull out one of his expensive cigars.
Preston Carpenter said with gleeful triumphant, “There she is Inspector, all ready to become the latest ‘guest’ of New Troy’s penal system.”
The veteran police officer pulled her out of the car and none too gently, hauled her up the steps. The younger man trailed behind, she turned to speak and heard her ex- boyfriend and Henderson talk like they were lifelong friends.
Henderson grinned like a shark, “With your cooperation, her arraignment, trial and conviction will be a piece of cake!”
Her ex-lover shrugged his shoulders, made boarder by the trick of an excellent tailor, “Thanks! After all, I had to report her ah ... financial indiscretions with DMG and Arianna Luthor’s tax fraud.”
The dark animal sound that clawed up from the pit of her stomach and raced up her throat and burst free from her lips was indescribable.
“I DON’T WANT TO GO TO JAIL!!!”
She jerked upright in one motion screaming, her arms and legs were tangled in sweat soaked sheets.
“Oh God! This can’t be real! Save me from this nightmare!” Linda King fell back into her pillow, but instead of it being a fluffy comfort, it was just as wet as the sheets.
The dream was all too real; yes she and Preston had been together for a few years, but throwing her to the wolves to save himself. Could he do something that awful to her? Simple, he had told her many times he was a survivor.
So was she.
Glancing at the clock, it said 2:30am. There was no point in trying to go back to bed. She got up and put on a pot of coffee. This was the third nightmare about Templar this week. Obviously her subconscious mind was telling her no good would come from this association. She distrusted Daae, hated his insufferable arrogance and underhanded business tactics, but it was business after all. Show her one business titan who did not have a skeleton or two in their closet! Yet never had the sense of pure evil emanate from Daae as it did from Templar. When he spoke to her over the phone, she sensed him actually thriving off her intense discomfort and gnawing fear.
After her phone call with Templar, Linda had come to the jarring realization that working with him was not just exchanging one Task Master for another; it was placing hers and Preston's very lives in grave danger. They needed leverage. Just in case Templar turned on them.
Many of the things they had done for Daae had been on the edge of breaking the law. But Templar was different. All of these uncertainties had risen to the surface from the moment Jasper Templar had entered Preston’s office with a deal. A deal which should have freed them from doing Daae’s bidding. Preston had jumped at the opportunity, especially since he revealed Daae actually owned not only the Metropolis Star, but through several shell companies owned stock in a number of Preston’s other businesses as well.
Working for a man like that meant trouble. It was time for her to make ‘other arrangements’.
The prospect of leaving Metropolis was not a concern; there really was no reason to remain. Truth be told, working for another newspaper lacked any appeal. Especially since the only one that had a modicum of attraction was Lois Lane’s powerbase.
Preston? In the recent past she thought he might have been planning to propose, but after three years of patient waiting she was no closer to being Mrs. Carpenter then when they first started seeing each other.
Having inside information about certain stocks, she had very cautiously made a number of wise investments. It was time to cash out and move on. Possibly live in New Mexico and write a screenplay about the duplicity of the newspaper publishing business?
She was determined to unearth more about Templar. She had to put her hard won skills as an investigative reporter to work. Long before coming to the work for the Metropolis Star she had cut her teeth on investigating all manner of crimes, businesses and persons, doing so in Florida, Los Angeles and Washington DC.
Some of her sources were deep within the intelligence community, some were other reporters willing to trade on information and others were denizens of the underworld, too shady to ever be mentioned in any of her stories. Most of them owed her a favor, time to call them in.
Jasper Templar was a snake and someone like him had to have stepped on a lot of toes climbing up the corporate ladder. Someone was bound to have dirt on him. Dirt they might want to see used against him for revenge. As the coffee flowed over her tongue, a mental list of the most discreet professional resources formed. Any reporter worth their salt had a carefully guarded list of snitches and confidential informants and Linda was no different, except certain people she needed to contact were not part of her usual list. She had a spreadsheet of names only to be used for emergencies. In fact one of the names on the list was her contact at LNN. This person was the one who had helped her gain information – on short notice - on all the key players at the station.
***
For the next two weeks, from the safety of pay phones, coffee shops and diners around the city; Linda dialed, made connections, bribed, bullied, cajoled and ultimately gathered scraps of Intel on Jasper Templar. At last there was enough information against him that she intended to hand all of it over to Daae. He had every right to recognize that his empire was about to be legally stolen from him. True, she was betraying Preston, but they needed to get back into the Swiss businessman’s good grace and work out a deal. With each new bit of negative information her sources provided about Templar she was uncertain whether that was possible.
Having allied themselves with Templar, Daae might consider such a traitorous act as unforgivable.
In the course of her investigation she uncovered a single piece of information that Lois Lane might give all of her Kerths for, a handy bargaining chip should she ever need it.
But the further she dug the more one rather unsettling fact kept surfacing. Prior to eight years ago, nobody had even heard of Jasper Templar.
No tax records, apartment rentals, home mortgages, credit card purchases and there weren’t even dental records - it was as if the man had materialized from out of thin air!
Her government contacts could not locate a shred of information about him beyond that time either; the witness protection program was out of the question. The program couldn’t permit a participant to hold a high profile position that could lead to intense public scrutiny.
It was a warm, late afternoon and Linda sat in Figaro’s Pharmacy several blocks from her condo. The old-time establishment was perfect for this kind of work, Figaro’s was a throwback to the days when the local pharmacy did more than just dispense over-priced drugs. It had a warm appeal and charm that the coffee shops frequented by the ‘twentysomething’ crowd lacked. The lunch counter served the best cold chicken salad sandwiches and ice cream sodas in the city – for a price that could not be beat. While writing notes she sat in a comfortable wooden booth near a wall of payphones so tracing her calls to sources both legal and illegal was nearly impossible.
Once during a meet with a source here, an old man who used to run booze during prohibition, told her that legendary nightclub owner and mobster Pino ‘Pretty Boy’ Dragonetti frequented Figaro’s for his banana splits. She could imagine the perfectly turned out gangster sitting in a back booth with a glamorous moll-of-the-week by his side.
So this was the perfect spot to call one of her best sources in the NSA, a man known only as ‘Mundy’. He confirmed her suspicions; Templar was not the false identity of a deep cover operative.
“Ms. King, whoever created this cover did a job that was good enough to survive a basic background check; but sadly he’s not one of ours. Let us know what you find on him. He might be the deep cover mole of an unfriendly power.”
Unfriendly power? She thought, than said. “Mundy, I doubt that. No espionage agent in their right mind could act like him.”
The NSA man shot back, “Ms. King, have you ever heard of the phrase, ‘hide in plain sight’?”
Realizing what the man was implying she responded with a sigh, “I see what you mean. Thanks Mundy.”
She hung up the phone, gathered up her purse and files and departed the pharmacy. As she walked home through the quiet streets, a young mother with her little girl, walked past, the girl’s blonde curly hair bouncing as they walked past, the child was happily babbling about her day at school. Linda looked on at the pair and wondered how anyone could put up with the insistent noisy chatter of a child.
A long, black limousine pulled up beside her, like a snake leisurely circling its prey, the window rolled down and Jasper Templar called to her, “Oh, Miss King! Good evening! I understand you have been making a number of rather personal inquiries about me?”
Startled by both the voice and the statement, Linda nearly stumbled. But quickly she steadied herself and glanced over to the man in the vehicle and said, “Inquiries? What inquiries?”
Jasper snorted and fired back, “You know very well what inquiries Miss King, about who I am and why there are no records going back further than eight years. Join me, and I will be happy to answer all your questions.”
Linda searched his face and noted the malevolent gleam in his eyes, frightened, she took a step backwards. Working hard to keep any hint of fear out of her voice she said, “Can … can we talk another time? I really must be going.”
He scolded her as if she were a mischievous child caught in a fib. “Now, here I am ready to answer all your questions and you want to leave me alone? How rude! Perhaps my little friend can convince you - especially after seeing that poor mother grieving over the death of her defenseless child.” He produced a wicked looking gun, all black with a black tube presumably a silencer attached to the end of the barrel and pointed it at the unsuspecting pair. Dusk had began so the ugly red dot of a laser sight appeared in the middle of the child’s back. With a tiny gasp of horror Linda watched as the pair walked down the street, totally oblivious to what was happening.
“No!” Linda ran up to the car and after Templar opened the door, stepped inside the sumptuously appointed automobile with its polished leather and gleaming chrome fittings and sat down. The smell of expensive leather normally would have been very soothing, but this time it only made her want to gag.
“Good. Very good. Now we can have a pleasant and hopefully productive chat.”
His passenger watched with fear in her green eyes, Templar was deriving an obscene kind of pleasure from her discomfort, if she were not so frightened it would have filled her with disgust. He kept the gun in his hand and ignoring her kept an eye on the mother and her child, silently reminding Linda that if she attempted to escape the little girl’s life would be forfeit.
Linda could not help but think this lavishly appointed vehicle was the exact opposite of the one in her nightmare and the thought made her tremble. But she was an investigative reporter and now that her subject knew her plans, it was time to get him talking.
Fear welled inside her throat like a piece of stall bread, but taking a quick swallow she asked, “How … how did you know I was investigating you?”
Templar smiled with infuriating smugness, “Actually I didn’t, until one of your sources came to me.”
She couldn’t imagine that one of her regular contacts would speak to Templar. Surely they had no idea she and Preston had anything to do with him? It had to have been one of the denizens of Suicide Slum.
Surprised, she blinked and said, “Since when does somebody from the streets get involved with a powerful corporate entity like you?” She said this with a weak, sickly smile in an attempt to be charming.
“Tsk tsk my dear, you really much expand your vision, yet at the same time be very cautious. Lowlifes come in all shapes, sizes and suits. No one from the streets, it was your contact at LNN - how deliciously ironic that he’s betrayed not only that annoying Lois Lane; but yourself as well. He may be a rat, but he’s my kind of rat.”
“Claude? Claude Debarre?” Before Linda could control herself she sputtered angrily, “He’s my best source at LNN!”
“Yes well, now he’s mine. Apparently the poor fellow has some gambling debts that required an immediate infusion of cash.” He muttered almost to himself, “There seems to be a rash of that lately. Otherwise a gentleman by the unlikely name of ‘Icepick’ would be coming around for a visit. Mr. Debarre is aware of the RoyalPoint arrangement and as such knows how important you and dear Preston are to that deal.”
“Me? How could I be important to taking over DMG and LexCorp?” She asked puzzled.
“Hmmm, quite right, allow me to amend that, Preston is important. His girlfriend/reporter Linda King is merely along for the ride. But your delectable presence makes Preston happy, with him happy, he makes us happy. Just a wonderful circle of life … don’t you agree?”
Linda was frightened, but that fear was now heavily infused with a good dose of anger. Hot blood rushed to her cheeks and she knew if her captor had not been holding a gun she would have struck him and escaped. Threatening her with the life of an innocent child was an act of cowardice. Templar considered her nothing more than a useful appendage of Preston’s - one to keep alive in order for him to do their bidding. She needed to rein in the panic and control her anger; Templar was in control … temporarily.
Fighting back the acid fear that was churning inside she asked, “So, what’s this with the missing years of your life? Where did you come from? I got in this car because of the child, now how about telling me?”
He laughed. The sound resembled a harsh bark. “What and spoil my fun? No sweet Linda, that is for me to know and for you to never find out.” Suddenly he grabbed her hand so hard, the bones and tendons seemed to crush together, she let out a yelp of pain. Leaning over, Templar’s hot breath hit her face. “Listen King, stay out of my business and do your job; writing stories for your boyfriend’s miserable rag of a newspaper and keep him happy. That way both of you will be very wealthy when RoyalPoint takes over LexCorp and DMG.” Contemptuously, he pushed her away as if she were a ragdoll. The ugliness of his voice now replaced with sweetness. “If you are a good girl, when this is all over I’ll let you fire Claude. It won’t be the first time he was kicked out of a job for back stabbing a fellow reporter. If you don’t behave, the alternative will be very nasty. Ah, here we are at your apartment building. Nice place. The view from the twentieth floor must be breathtaking … it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see the view on the wrong side of the glass.” The car moved smoothly up to the front of a modern building complete with doorman. As soon as it rolled to a halt Templar grabbed the handle, flung open the door and snarled, “Get out!”
Linda did not have to be told twice, gathering up her bag, with the incriminating files tucked safely inside. Templar’s business with her was completed, having been properly disciplined; she was no longer of any relevance to him. With no small amount of relief, she made a hasty and undignified exit. As soon as her feet touched the pavement, the car door closed with a bang and the vehicle rolled silently down the street.
***
This time, the couple who had observed Lois and Clark at Café Americana watched from across the street, as a terrified Linda ran to her apartment.
“I don’t like what just happened in that limousine. How could anyone threaten an innocent child?” asked the man as he pulled a blue Metros baseball cap further down over his face.
“Nothing that insane monster does could ever surprise me. I wish we could do something.” His blond companion snapped. She wrapped trembling arms around her waist to ward of a chill, despite the temperatures being in the mid-seventies.
Remember what he said, ‘no interference’ until its time. This is not our world.”
“Yeah, that may be true, but I don’t have to like it.”
A gentle sigh escaped the man's lips, "Don't worry, it wouldn't have happened, no matter what our 'guide' says.
The blonde looked over and took his hand. "Thank you. Now what do we do?"
"Nothing. We wait."
