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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 133 …

Henderson nodded, signaling to some of the other men with him and sending them over to Perry’s office. “Where’s my bomb?”

Lois shrugged. “Superman said something about taking it to space.”

The detective looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Could you inform him to contact me or someone else in the bomb squad about lessons on defusing a bomb in order to keep the evidence intact?”

“I’m sure he was more worried about it blowing up the Daily Planet or killing everyone within six city blocks,” Clark said. “But we’ll pass on the message.”

Lois stood up and went to ball up the remains of her duct tape straitjacket, but Henderson raised a hand to stop her.

“Do you mind if we gather evidence before you start cleaning?” he asked.

She tossed him her pile of duct tape. “Be my guest.”

“Lois, Clark, why don’t we move to the other conference room and allow these men to check for any more explosives,” Perry suggested, opening the door leading to the newsroom.

“You should leave the building completely until we give the all clear,” Henderson recommended.

Perry turned to Detective Henderson. “Now, see here, Detective. We’ve had a major news event in Metropolis fall into our laps, and I need to get my reporters working on it for tomorrow’s paper.”

“There won’t be an edition tomorrow, Mr. White, if these guys planted any more bombs around the building,” Henderson reminded him. “Your security guard said they were looking for Dragonetti’s vault, but maybe they were just looking for a good place to plant another bomb.”

“Judas Priest!” Perry grumbled, but Lois could tell he would relent to make sure his staff was safe. He turned and marched into his office.

“Mr. White!” Henderson called with exasperation as he followed him. “You shouldn’t…”

Perry returned to the conference room less than a minute later holding his Elvis box. “Come on, folks. We’ll have our meeting outside, and let these nice policemen do their jobs.”

Part 134

As they reached the stairwell, Perry stopped to face Clark. “Kent, I want you to stay up here and keep an eye on the bomb squad. See what you can find out from them about our heist crew in there.”

“Yes, sir,” Clark replied, giving Lois an apologetic glance. He thought that maybe, finally, they would have time to get together somewhere alone and talk. He should have known better.

“But, Chief,” Lois started.

Perry shifted his box to one hand, so he could hold up his other hand. “I’m not done, Lois. I want you to head home and write up everything you remember about tonight on your laptop. The first person account of being in the ‘belly of the beast’ as you put it so nicely earlier. I’ll send the Olsen twins over to give you their perspective. When you’ve gotten that written up, the MPD should have cleared the Daily Planet, the phone lines should be working again, and we should have an official ID on Fuentes, Remy, and Schumack and whoever the others are by then. I’m going to have Jimmy find out all he can on Pino Dragonetti, William Robertson, and the history of the Daily Planet building for a sidebar.”

Lois started to nod, before her assignment sunk in. “Wait a minute. All that touchy feely crap is more Kent’s forte, than mine. He should be writing it up, not me. Isn’t that why you hired him?” She flung her hand towards her partner.

“Gee. Thanks. Lois.”

“No, Lois, I hired your partner because nobody is better at pushing your buttons than he is,” Perry replied.

‘Wow. Feeling the love, here,’ Clark thought, but he knew it was just the Chief’s way of pushing Lois’s buttons himself.

“I should be staying here with the bomb squad,” she said, tossing the Chief’s comment aside. “And investigating who these guys were, if they have any connections to organized crime, and where they could have possibly gotten a nuclear bomb. I’m your star reporter.”

“You’re too close to it. You need a few minutes to decompress, darlin’. Plus, that’s the great thing about partners. When he’s working on something, it’s like you are, too.”

“I don’t need to decompress,” she argued.

“If the MPD hasn’t broken the window of my office, I’m sure it says that Perry White is still Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet, and not Lois Lane, but if I’m mistaken about that, please don’t continue to keep me in the dark,” Perry said, informing Lois that indeed her boss’s patience had reached its limit.

“No, it still reads ‘Perry White’,” she murmured.

“In that case, I’ll still give out story assignments. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kent?” Perry said, turning to him.

“Yes, sir,” Clark said, erring on the side of caution.

“When the bomb squad is done, I want you to see if you can contact Superman and have him tell you everything he discovered about that bomb,” his boss informed him.

“I’ll do my best,” Clark replied.

Perry turned back to Lois. “And, Lois, after you write up your touchy-feely mood piece, and have taken a moment to process what happened to you a few minutes ago,” Perry went on. “Then check area hospitals and find out about Luthor’s condition. He should be out of surgery, pre-op, or whatever by then. You have the edge, being that you know what he’s going through, since he shot you in the arm last summer. When you get back to the office, Kent can look over your mood piece and see if it needs any of his extra ‘fluffiness’.”

The Chief’s expression as he said that and did a one-handed air quote around ‘fluffiness’ made Clark feel better about Lois’s slight on his journalistic integrity. Having Clark look over her mood piece was her punishment for questioning her boss’s authority, and they both knew it by the way Lois both blanched and appeared ready to strangle the nearest person, which – as luck would have it – was Clark.

“After that,” Perry went on. “I want you two delving deep into these guys’ background, if they have any connections to organized crime, and from where they could have possibly gotten a nuclear bomb. You can sleep when you two find out who these yahoos are who brought a bomb into my newsroom and redecorated my office with jackhammers and blowtorches!”

Lois looked for a moment as if she were about to argue with him, but then Perry raised an eyebrow, and she backed down. “Yes, Perry.”

“Thatta girl,” their boss said, readjusting his box so he held it in two hands once more. “Now, I’ve got to contact Alice and let her know her hound dog is still alive.” He started down the stairs.

“I’ll talk to you later, Lois,” Clark said, setting his hand on her shoulder.

“Mind if I don’t hold my breath?” she mumbled.

“Hey, don’t blame me if…”

“Don’t blame you?” Lois scoffed. “Right. Of course, it’s my fault and only my fault that we haven’t had a chance to speak over the last two weeks.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he said. “You said previously to let you get a word in edgewise, maybe you should give me the same courtesy.”

Lois crossed her arms and waited.

Clark didn’t want to argue. His earlier defense of his assignment died on his lips. “We’re equally to blame, Lois,” he said quietly.

Her body tension eased a bit. “Mind if I agree to disagree?” she said.

“That’s your prerogative, Minha, but you have to admit we’ve both been swamped since Nightfall.”

She conceded that point with a side-tilt head bob and shrug.

“Let’s write our stories and promise to schedule a time to meet over the next few days and to not allow ourselves to be interrupted,” he suggested. “Just you and me.”

The corner of Lois’s lips tilted upwards. “I’d like that.” Her eyes widened. “I just remembered that there’s something I need to tell Perry.” She waved her hand. “I’ll tell you about it later. I better see if I can catch him before he calls Alice.”

“Good luck,” Clark said, feeling reassured that they seemed finally to be on the same page.

Lois leaned towards him and murmured, “When you see Cat tell her I understand why she uses handcuffs. It might be the only way to keep both of us together long enough to finish a conversation. We should definitely consider using a pair should we ever get a real date night.” She kissed his cheek and started jogging down the stairs.

He could have sworn that when she glanced back at him as she rounded the corner that she bounced her eyebrows.

***

Lois pushed through the front doors of the Daily Planet building, and saw before her a strange sight. Perry White was taking a breath of fresh air. His eyes were closed, his Elvis box sat at his feet, and he was enjoying a moment of freedom after their ordeal. Inspector Henderson handed Perry his mobile phone, so he could call Alice, and the moment was gone.

Damn. Lois really was hoping to talk with the Chief while Clark was busy, so she knew he wouldn’t be listening in. Actually, that wasn’t true. Clark was a good guy, and she doubted that he purposely eavesdropped on her conversations. One of the questions, which she wanted to ask him, was exactly how his super-hearing worked. He had given a brief overview during the November heat wave while he was on trial, but temperatures weren’t the only things heated that afternoon. She looked forward to someday being able to have a nice calm conversation with Clark about everything under the sun, and a few things past it.

She knew that Perry would be a few minutes, so she walked around the edge of the building. She needed to stretch her legs after being taped to the chair. A paramedic shut the back doors of an ambulance and climbed into the front of the van. A part of Lois told her she should really run after it and insist she ride with Lex to the hospital.

Except she really didn’t want to.

Lois wasn’t only tired of pretending Clark was two people, she had spent more than enough time in Lex’s presence for one night. She knew this would be her one night off the grid. Lex wouldn’t expect her to be home in bed, and even if he did, he would be too busy to check up on her. She could easily spend the night elsewhere and tell Lex, should he ever be crass enough to bring up the subject, that she was busy working all night on the investigation of the terrorists without a cause (besides robbery, and was robbery enough of a ‘cause’ to consider them terrorists still?). She only hoped that she and Clark could finish their multiple assignments quickly enough to spend some time together by dawn and that they weren’t too exhausted to do more than share a lingering kiss.

Lois’s eyes drifted shut as she imaged what such a kiss would be like. They would be at Clark’s apartment, since hers was probably swarming with electronic bugs, and they would be sitting on his sofa. Clark would have made coffee or, more likely, tea. She would lean into him and he would wrap his free arm around her… no. Clark would set down his hot mug, and then wrap both his arms around her at once. Yes, that was better.

She would turn towards Clark and really look at him, up close and proper like. Would she snuggle against his shoulder? No, she would reach up to remove his glasses, but he would stop her for some stupid reason or by kissing her. Yes! Clark would distract her by pressing his lips to hers. Much better.

Her lips would naturally part at the pressure as she sighed with exhausted relief. Clark would take the opportunity her sigh afforded him, and dance his tongue over her lips. Lois would melt against him, running her fingers through his hair. No, down his chest. Oh, yes, much better. Her fingers would explore the ridges and valleys of Clark’s muscular chest. Mmmmmm.

Their kiss would grow deeper, tongues dancing with tongues, and his hands chastely holding her against him. Chastely? Well, that wasn’t any fun, but it was a reasonable guess knowing her unofficial secret boyfriend.

Ugh, she hated that word. She wasn’t a ‘girl’, and Clark certainly wasn’t any ‘boy’. She would have to come up with a better word to describe their relationship to one another. The millions of adults in relationships around the world would thank her.

Clark would start to kiss down her throat, his hands on her back slipping down to her waist. His fingers would gently pull up the fabric of her… Oh, wait, she was wearing a cocktail dress, that wouldn’t work. His hands would glide down past her waist to her thighs.

Her lips finally free, Lois would ask him, “Truth time, Clark. What are you really?”

Clark would stop kissing her and lean back to stare at her in horror, and suddenly realize that he needed to switch his laundry out of the washing machine, or some other highly plausible, yet ridiculous, excuse and run out the door.

Hmmmm. Maybe he wasn’t the only lunkhead in this relationship. Asking him to tell her his secret while they’re making out. No, that was definitely more a question to ask him over a meal. She wondered if Superman could choke on his food, and if he could, would the Heimlich work on him.

Lois grinned. Breakfast would be a good time to talk or, better yet, brunch. Not that she would allow them to become intimate without him telling her the truth, but she could still fall asleep in his arms on his sofa. He could pick her up, carry her into his bedroom, and snuggle with her. His warm breath sending shivers of anticipation through her hair and down her neck to her spine.

Anyway, Lois needed to handcuff Clark to her wrist again before she pressed him on the matter. She recalled being handcuffed to Clark earlier, being pressed intimately against his chest and body, and his fingers touching her waist with soft caresses. She let her mind slip to the wild side. She could’ve driven Clark crazy, if only they had been in that position but without the hostage situation or witnesses. An evil grin spread over her lips.

The ambulance drove off, sirens whining, and pulled Lois out of her reverie. What was she doing? Mad Dog Lane just missed an excellent scoop because she was daydreaming about making out with her… her… partner. She really needed to create another word for what Clark was to her. Personal lunkhead would work for now.

She couldn’t believe him. First, he tells her as Superman it would be a good idea if she married some insurance salesman and settled down instead of being a reporter, because it would make his job easier! Then, just as he was finally, finally, going to tell her the truth about something, hopefully about being two people, he stopped and said he would tell her later. Okay, sure, Perry walked in less than a minute later and then the MPD bomb squad showed up. Why couldn’t she catch a break?

Lois hated that her obsession with Clark was making her lose her edge. That might not even have been Lex in that ambulance. It could have been one of the terrorists. She studied her surroundings, saw a uniformed officer heading into the Daily Planet parking garage, and followed him. What was going on in there?

She went down the ramp and saw the coroner’s van parked next to a “Night Cleaning” van. Why was the medical examiner here? Had someone died? Nobody ever told her anything.

Lois approached the officer she had been following. “What’s going on?”

“Superman killed a man, slitting his throat,” the man replied.

Wow. She had met some stupid members of the MPD during the course of her career, but this guy took the cake and decorated it. “Really?” Lois said, crossing her arms. “When was this?”

The officer glanced back at her and realized she wasn’t who he must have thought she was. Yep. Einstein he wasn’t.

“Um…”

“Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Officer…” She glanced at his badge. “Marlow.” He was never going to live down this mistake.

He cleared his throat. “Uh… I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”

“You got a first name, Marlow?” she asked.

“Adam.”

“Adam, you already are talking with me. So, did you witness Superman killing this man?”

“Uh… no,” Officer Marlow sputtered.

“Did anyone else witness it?” she probed.

“Um…” The man licked his lips. “Only the victim, ma’am.”

Oh, Marlow would be lucky to get a job spitting on someone’s windshield in traffic after she was finished with him. “So, then how do you know it was Superman who killed him?”

“That’s the rumor,” he said, his voice rough. He coughed to try to clear it.

“You do know that it isn’t the MPD’s job to spread rumors, especially to the press, right? I’m going to guess that you’re new, so I’ll explain to you what your job is,” she said. And, moreover, she’d use small words and talk slowly to make sure he understood. “It’s the MPD’s job to find out the truth, examine the evidence, and sift through the facts until you find the relevant ones. You might have heard about this part of our justice system called ‘Innocent until Proven Guilty’. It’s your job to enforce the laws, especially that one. Now, I’m going to tell you right now that Superman didn’t kill that man, and do you know how I know this?”

He slowly shook his head.

“Besides the fact that Superman doesn’t kill people, Superman doesn’t carry a knife and would never slit a man’s throat. Where was the victim when it happened?”

The officer glanced over his shoulder and back at the Night Cleaning van.

“In the van?”

The man nodded.

“Was the knife found with the body?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Okay. Was there a struggle?”

Officer Marlow glanced back at the van. “No.”

“So, you think that Superman would enter a parking garage and kill a man in cold blood for no reason whatsoever? Does that sound like Superman?”

“No,” he admitted, gazing down at his feet.

“Marlow!” Inspector Henderson interrupted Lois’s interview just as she was going in for the kill. “What are you doing?”

Officer Marlow cleared his throat. “Talking to the lady.”

“First of all, this is no ‘lady’,” Henderson corrected.

“Hey!” Lois griped. She was certainly too a lady.

“She’s Lois Lane, sharpest reporter in Metropolis.”

Okay, she would forgive him.

“Are you allowed to talk to her?” Henderson asked.

“No?” Marlow asked. “But she said…”

“Second of all, of course she said whatever she did to get you to talk. She’s a reporter, Marlow,” Henderson reminded him. “That’s her job. If I ever see you talking to her again, even to tell her the time, it’ll be your badge.”

“Yes, sir,” Marlow said.

Henderson pointed out of the garage. “Get back to directing traffic.”

Marlow nodded and scooted as fast as he could out of the garage.

“Ms. Lane,” Henderson greeted her.

“Inspector Henderson. That wasn’t very nice. I was just talking with the kid,” Lois said in her best innocent voice.

“Right.” Henderson didn’t sound as if he believed her. “Anything Officer Marlow told you was off the record. He doesn’t have permission to tie his shoes let alone talk to the press. Got it?”

“No. Why does the MPD think Superman killed the van driver?” Lois asked.

“The MPD doesn’t ‘think’, Ms. Lane,” Henderson started.

“Clearly,” she retorted.

“I meant grammatically; it can’t any more than LNN or the FBI can,” Henderson corrected.

Lois grinned. “Again, you won’t get any argument from me on that score.”

He scowled. “How does Kent put up with you?”

She batted her eyelashes. “He doesn’t. So, why do you think that Superman killed that man?”

“I don’t,” he replied. “I never did. Superman would have captured him as those others were upstairs.”

Her brow furrowed as Clark’s words returned to the forefront of her mind. “Superman said he didn’t capture those men. Do you have any leads on who might have?”

Henderson took her elbow and led her to the side of the garage, away from the crime scene. He must have noticed her inching closer to it as they had spoken. “You’ve talked to Superman?”

“Yes, when he removed the bomb from my chest,” Lois replied. “He said he didn’t capture any of the terrorists and that he was talking to you and Detective Tuzzolino when he heard… something.” Her calling for help, but Henderson didn’t need that detail. “When he arrived up in the newsroom, Fuentes and Remy were already tied up in Perry’s office.”

“I see,” Henderson said, rubbing his jaw in thought. “I’d like to keep it off the record that it wasn’t Superman who captured the robbers.”

“Why? He shouldn’t be accused of that man’s murder.” She flung her hand out to the crime scene.

“He won’t be, Ms. Lane, but I don’t want the real vigilante to know that we’re on to him.”

“On to whom?” Lois probed.

“Exactly. We don’t have any leads, yet, but if he thinks that we aren’t looking into it, because we believe it was Superman, he might make a mistake or try it again,” Henderson explained.

“Or she,” she corrected.

“Excuse me?” Henderson said, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“The vigilante is an unknown factor, yes?”

“Yes,” he said warily.

“So, it’s possible it was a woman, just as easily as a man,” Lois replied. “You’re slipping, Henderson. That should have been a given.”

Henderson stared at her a moment before the edges of his lips curled into a smile. “Oh. So, there might be a super powered woman with a bad attitude from Krypton hiding out in Metropolis, too?”

His words slapped across her face like a frozen fish. “There better not be,” she grumbled. “And Superman isn’t ‘hiding out in Metropolis’. Nobody is more visible than that guy.”

“What does it matter to you, Ms. Lane? You’re dating Lex Luthor, are you not?” he asked innocently.

“I’m not dating anybody,” she sniped.

Henderson’s smile burst into a full-blown grin. “All right you aren’t, which is why you and Lex Luthor arrived together this evening?”

“We’re friends,” she hissed. “We were going to attend the opera together as friends.”

“Sure. Sure,” he replied with a wink.

“My life isn’t under investigation here, Henderson!” Lois couldn’t tell if he was teasing her or if he really believed that she had an intimate relationship with that creepy billionaire. She shivered in disgust at that very thought. Of course, Henderson didn’t know what she knew about Lex being the Voyeur. How could he? A little voice inside her head said. She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone… well, except Cat. Speaking of which… “Where’s Cat Grant?”

“Ms. Grant left after the hostages were released,” Henderson replied. “How did you know that she…?”

“A little bird told me,” Lois said.

“Oh, Kent. You’re lucky that your partner can read lips and was able to communicate with us through the window of the stairwell door; otherwise, we wouldn’t have known about the bomb and would have sent in the S.W.A.T. team to rescue you. We could’ve had a completely different ending to this stand-off.”

She pointed at him. “That’s what he was doing?” Of course. “Yes, I’m very lucky,” she said wryly. The jerk could’ve told her. They were strapped together after all. He could’ve whispered it in her ear.

“So, do you think that the unknown vigilante is the one who killed the van driver?” Lois asked.

Henderson shrugged. “We’re not making any assumptions at this point, Ms. Lane.”

“How could these robbers have gotten a nuclear bomb?” she asked, returning to interview mode.

“We haven’t received confirmation from Superman that the bomb was indeed a nuclear device. Until that time, Ms. Lane, we aren’t speculating. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, with a slight bow of his head.

“One last question, Inspector!” Lois called out after he had taken two steps.

He froze and glanced back at her with obvious annoyance.

“How is this attempted robbery related to organized crime?” she asked. Henderson had implied the last time they met that he worked only organized crime cases.

A smile broadened across his face. “Pino Dragonetti was one of the biggest crime lords back in the day, and his secret vault had never been found, until today,” Henderson said. “Finally, we can shut the book on him.” He continued on his way over to the medical examiner.

Lois doubted that was the true reason he was there. It would be a pleasant day in hell if she ever got a straight answer out of both Henderson and Clark within twenty-four hours.

She went back outside to see if Perry had gotten off the phone with Alice. She needed to let him know what she had found in Lex’s filing cabinet.

Perry closed the phone and turned in her direction as she walked up. “Woman, didn’t I tell you to go home and work on your POV piece?” he grouched.

Woman? Apparently his call with Alice hadn’t eased his mood any. “Did you know that one of the robbers was murdered in our parking garage?” she returned, putting her hands on her hips. “If I had gone straight home like a good little girl, we could’ve missed out on that news item there, Boss.”

Jimmy and Jimbo stood nearby chatting with a slightly balding, dark haired man in a suit with a badge hanging around his neck on a string.

“And you could’ve died up in the conference room,” Perry reminded her, his voice a tad softer. Had he been worried about her? He grabbed Jimbo by the shoulder. “Jimbo, make sure Lois gets home okay.”

“Uh… Detective Tuzzolino wanted to interview me,” Jimbo said hesitatingly as he eyed Lois. “Maybe when he’s done, she could make sure I get home okay.”

Lois smiled. Jimbo learned quickly. She liked that in a researcher.

“Let Lois interview you on tape and she can make sure the MPD gets a copy,” Perry said, turning to the man. “That okay, Tuzzolino?”

“No, that’s not okay,” Detective Tuzzolino replied, and then sighed. “But it’ll do for now. As long as he interviews her, too.”

“Interviews me? Jimbo?” Lois scoffed. “He’s a gofer!”

“I was just visiting, and what do you mean I’m a gofer?” Jimbo asked, turning on Lois. “I’m a student. I don’t work here!”

Perry wrapped an arm around Jimbo’s shoulders. “Play your cards right, and keep pushing her buttons, and you can have another summer internship, Jimbo,” he said.

“Gee, thanks, Mr. White. I really appreciate it,” Jimbo said. “But if you don’t mind, I think it would be safer to be on Lois’s good side.”

Lois smiled. Point to her.

“Hey, do you play cards?” Perry asked.

“No, I’m lousy at it. Why?” Jimbo replied.

Perry grinned. “No reason. Consider yourself hired for a summer internship. Now, go interview our lead hostage here,” he said, nudging him towards Lois.

“Thanks, Perry,” Lois grumbled. “But I really need to talk to…”

“Can it wait until after we put this sucker to bed?” the Chief asked.

“Hey!” Jimbo interjected.

Lois frowned. What was twelve more hours? Anyway, she didn’t want to add an extra scoop of bricks to Perry’s current stress level. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“He means the newspaper, Jimbo,” Jimmy said with a chuckle. “You sure you want to hire him, Chief?”

Perry waved them off.

***

Clark flew up above the Earth, past the orbit of the moon, and plucked the small blinking box out of the void. It hadn’t drifted much from where he had left it after removing it from Lois’s chest. He had been able to pry it enough open to peer inside, and that had been enough to tell him that it wasn’t a bomb or didn't have a timing device on it. Therefore, he had left it there to examine again at his leisure and returned as quickly as possible to Lois, so that she wouldn’t think that Clark had left and not returned within his fifteen-minute window.

When he had come to, Raul Fuentes refused to talk about the bomb. Actually, Fuentes refused to talk about anything, except to ask to speak to counsel. Detective Henderson had discovered his driver’s license in his wallet, which was how they discovered his first name. Remy Berkholtz talked, though. Poor Detective Henderson couldn’t get the woman to shut up. She made Lois sound quiet. Yet, with all of her yammering, all that Remy would say about the bomb was that it had been Fuentes’s deal and that she didn’t know anything about it. He was the ringleader; she was just following orders. Had he not been handcuffed, Clark guessed Fuentes would have crossed his arms and smiled smugly. Instead, they were on the receiving end of his smugness.

Therefore, in the end, the MPD had one mute suspect, one chatty suspect, who didn’t say anything, and no other traces of explosives at the Daily Planet. Detective Tuzzolino had taken in the other three henchmen for questioning. Clark hoped Lois was able to get some information from them, but then he remembered that Perry had sent her home to ‘decompress’. He would check in with Tuzzolino later then, when he returned to MPD Headquarters as Superman to inform them what he had learned about the bomb.

Detective Henderson wasn’t thrilled that Clark had stayed, and even made him sign a waiver, releasing the MPD from liability. Apparently, he was used to working with Lois and had automatically brought the paperwork with him when he was needed at the Daily Planet. Then, he allowed Clark to observe as long as he didn’t interrupt, speak, or touch anything. Who knew that Inspector Henderson was the more easy-going one of the two Hendersons?

After the MPD Bomb Squad had cleared the Daily Planet newsroom once more for civilians, Clark had returned to the far side of the moon to see what else he could learn about the little box Fuentes said was a dirty nuclear bomb. While the bomb squad had checked the newsroom and advertising department for more explosives, Clark had casually fallen into conversation with one of the bomb squad guys about what Fuentes’s box could contain. He had been able to coax the conversation around to what a remote detonator might look like from the inside. From what the man said, Clark was reasonably sure that somehow Raul Fuentes hadn’t been lying about the bomb. The thing was, it hadn’t been on his person, but somewhere near the building.

Until Superman found the bomb, they wouldn’t know where it was located or what kind of bomb it actually was. If Fuentes knew well enough to line the remote with lead, it meant the bomb was probably shielded as well. If it was a nuclear bomb, it was probably lined with lead anyway due to radiation.

It would be another long sleepless night for Superman ahead.

***End of Part 134***

Part 135

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