Table of Contents
From Part 2:It was the perfect prison.
Almost.
Just one or two things seemed to present an opportunity. While there were no handy metal objects which weren’t screwed down or welded, and the air conditioning vents were far too small even for her to crawl through, the Lois Lane of old was more resourceful than that. She’d ripped up one of her sheets into strips and twisted it into two separate plaits; the smaller one would make a perfect throttling rope if she got the opportunity, and then the larger would be useful for tying her victim up.
As for the lock, she might not have her lock-picks handy, but she intended to have a damn good try with the plastic knives Lex had left behind. In any case, one of those, broken, would make an excellent weapon - she now had two very sharp pieces in her pocket.
She only needed to get close enough.
************
Now read on...Clark had known that the Rocky Mountain National Park was huge, but he’d never appreciated just how big it was until he’d had to search every inch of it. Right now, looking for Lois felt like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
He’d eliminated a number of areas of the park, simply because they were too busy - ranger stations, hiking trails, campsites and so on. If the Lake Superior beach house was anything to go by, Luthor preferred to keep his property in inaccessible places. So for the past hour he’d been scouring all of the high peaks and hidden valleys he could find. It didn’t help that he had no idea whatsoever of what he was looking for - a house? a cabin? a vehicle of some kind?
And, every so often, pessimism hit him as he considered that he could well be on a completely false trail. Okay, so Luthor’s plane had gone to Estes Park. But how did he know that Luthor hadn’t merely been using that as a stopping-off point? There was no guarantee at all that he had Lois in the Rockies. He might just have planned to refuel the plane at Estes Park before flying on somewhere else.
But logic told him that somewhere inaccessible in the Rockies was the perfect hiding-place. Remote, lacking in easy communications, Lois could be hidden here indefinitely, if Luthor wanted. And if, as Clark was convinced, her husband intended to stage another ‘accident’, there were plenty of steep drops, deep lakes, slopes with loose scree and deserted trails. It would be child’s play to Luthor to push Lois off a track somewhere and leave her to die.
He would
not let that happen! If he had to search every minute of the next week or more, he would find her.
He had more hours of daylight in which to search, thanks to Mountain Time being two hours behind the east coast and one hour behind Kansas. Not that he couldn’t see in the dark, of course; another area where his special abilities came in very useful.
Today was definitely one of those days when he was very grateful indeed that he was different from everyone else. Without those differences, he’d have no hope whatsoever of finding Lois. In fact, she’d already be dead, floating somewhere in that vast lake.
If it was the last thing he did, he would make sure that Luthor didn’t get the chance to hurt her again. Though the thought that her husband might already be hurting her, terrifying her, doing unspeakable things to her sent renewed chills through him...
No. He couldn’t afford to think about that. Think about something else. Like the fact that rescuing Lois was only the beginning of what he had to do. They also had to prove that Luthor had tried to kill her. Thanks to Jill, they had a head start - as long as she could prove everything related to the animal sedative.
But, even then, they would have to contend with Luthor’s billions. He could afford to hire the very best lawyers. Bribe the very best doctors. If he managed to have Lois declared insane, or disturbed, then he could argue that she had taken the drug herself without realising it, or without caring. Of course, Jill could testify that Lois was perfectly sane and in her right mind... but what would Jill’s testimony count against some big-name psychiatrist that Luthor could buy?
So they had to find other ways to bring Luthor down. Starting, Clark thought, with the destruction of the Daily Planet. The more he thought about that, the more suspicious it seemed. From what he remembered, Olsen had gone to prison continually protesting his innocence. Perry White, the Planet’s former editor, was on record as refusing to believe that Olsen, whom he seemed to consider a protege, was incapable of burning down the paper. And, the biggest pointer of all as far as Clark was concerned, the timing was incredibly convenient for Luthor.
The Planet burning down had cut Lois off from all her support networks. It had left her feeling isolated. Friendless. Unemployed. She’d been cast adrift... and Luthor had been there to hook her and reel her in. Yes, so very convenient.
So the Planet bombing was the obvious place to start. Another approach had to be trying to get Lois to jog her memory and work out what it was that had put Luthor so much on his guard where she was concerned. She was an excellent reporter - he was in awe of her abilities. Now that she knew what to look for, he was confident that she’d put it together.
Luthor wouldn’t -
What was that?
He stilled in his slow circling of the Forever Summer Range. On the dark side of one of the peaks, heading down into a valley which looked just about inaccessible to anyone without a helicopter with the most delicate of instruments, he thought he saw... something. Something dark, a splash of grey which didn’t seem to match the white and black and green of the surrounding landscape.
Dropping lower, he could see it more clearly. Definitely a dull, dark grey, but a very different colour from the rocks and shale poking out of the light covering of snow. Slate? No, that would look natural. It was some sort of metal, he concluded. Time to look beyond the surface...
Bingo! It was an underground building of some sort. And, unless the forest rangers were into constructing underground shelters, or the government really was concealing the existence of aliens from outer space, Clark was pretty sure that this had to be where Luthor was hiding Lois.
Now, he just had to get inside and find her.
***********
It completely figured that, as soon as she actually
wanted Lex to come back to her room, he was nowhere in sight. Well, she could wait. It would give her time to plan her move, after all.
And to think about other things, as well... such as just what it was that she’d seen to get Lex so worried that he’d started courting her. And that he’d been prepared to kill her to prevent her remembering.
It had definitely been something she’d seen; she was sure of that. On the phone to Nigel, he’d referred to her having seen something. Not heard. So that did give her something of a clue, she supposed. If she could only remember...
Okay. It had been around mid-March that his behaviour changed so completely. She’d still been seeing him casually, maybe once every couple of weeks, no more than that. Much of the time, she wasn’t even in his home - he’d pick her up from her apartment, or have his driver pick her up, and she’d be taken home afterwards. So she couldn’t imagine having seen anything on one of those times. It had to have been some time when she’d been at the penthouse.
A document. A note. A message.
Something of that kind. Had she ever been in his office alone? She’d been there with him a couple of times; occasions when he’d apologised but explained that he had to make a phone call or sign some papers before they had dinner. She’d gone with him and sat on the visitor’s chair or gazed out of the window at the cityscape while she’d waited.
Maybe she’d seen something when she’d been there with him. Had she gone over to his desk? Glanced at what was on it? Or noticed some papers on a side table? What could it be?
Maybe it wasn’t a document. Something else... an object? A person, perhaps? Someone a man in Lex’s position shouldn’t be associating with?
No; this wasn’t getting her anywhere. Lois flopped down on the sofa and propped her chin up on her hands, deep in thought. If only she’d been as busy with her miniature camera in Lex’s office as she’d been in other places...
Camera!
She raised her head slowly and flicked her gaze carefully around the room. Why hadn’t it occurred to her earlier that Lex probably had cameras installed so that he could keep an eye on what she was doing? This room seemed to have been constructed especially for its purpose, so adding a few cameras wouldn’t exactly have been difficult. Which meant, of course, that he’d have seen her frantic search, the sheet she’d plaited and the knives she’d carefully broken...
Oh well. It had seemed like a good idea at the time...
No! Lois Lane did
not give up on a good idea, even when situations changed. She simply altered her plan to fit in with the altered circumstances. And one thing which had frequently worked to her advantage was the old diversion trick.
Smiling inside, she got to her feet - and kicked over the coffee-table, sending the tray and its contents flying. Next, she shoved the sofa hard, managing to knock it onto its side. Looking around, trying to decide what to wreck next, her gaze fell on a painting hanging on the opposite wall. It came down and was hurled on top of the coffee-table. She strode into the bathroom, turned all of the taps on full, put the plugs in and left them to overflow. Next, she went back into the main room and pushed over one of the heavy nightstands, then crossed to do the same to the other.
Bingo! She heard footsteps approaching at a rapid pace. And a voice - yes, it was Lex’s - saying sharply, “Leave this to me! You can go back to your post.”
And the door opened. She was waiting behind it.
Lex entered, looking angry. She had the broken edge of a plastic knife to his throat before he’d taken two paces into the room.
“Don’t even try it!” he barked, whirling around to grab her.
But she darted out of his reach, at the same time jabbing the knife in. He yelped in pain. While he was distracted, she hooked her foot around his ankle and pulled. Caught off-balance, he fell, but as he went down he tried to grab her. Again, she jumped out of his reach.
He was climbing to his feet in less than a second. Should she try to take him down again? Come at him again with the knife? Take a chance that she could get her makeshift rope around his neck?
No! The door stood open. In the split second while he was regaining his balance, she launched a hard kick at his knee, making him groan and wobble again, and then she ran for the door, slamming it behind her. Of course, he’d be out within minutes, if not sooner, but it gave her a head start.
Which way? Again, she had to make a split-second decision. In that moment, angry sounds of confusion came from the right. So she went left. Now all she had to do was find a way out of this place, before Lex or his goons caught her.
***********
At least the roof wasn’t lead. That had been Clark’s fear as he’d plummeted, knowing by instinct that he’d found Luthor’s hideout. That he’d found Lois. Lead, he’d discovered by accident years ago, was something he just couldn’t see through. Any other substance - steel, wood, brick, drywall, copper, earth, anything at all he’d come across - was completely transparent to him when he put his mind to it. But not lead; that remained stubbornly impervious.
This roof was made of some sort of tempered, painted steel. Seeing through it was child’s play. So all he had to do was ensure that there was no-one below to see him make his entrance.
First, though, he needed to deal with the couple of tiny objects he’d seen embedded in the nearby rock. Shorting the cameras was the work of less than a second. Smiling at the satisfying sizzle each made as he destroyed it, Clark then turned his attention back to the scene below.
Ah. That had to be the control-room. A couple of men were standing by screens - and, as he watched, one started pointing agitatedly at the bank of monitors. A shout, and two other men joined their colleagues in staring at what was in front of them. Good, he thought. Distracting Luthor’s hired muscle was a convenient side-effect of sabotaging the cameras.
He pulled his glasses down his nose again and began the job of cutting out a hole in the steel. Again, in seconds it was done, and he inhaled deeply, sucking up the neat circle of metal before it fell below and alerted someone to his presence. Then he spent a few more moments studying the layout once more before jumping inside.
And what he saw made him smile in reluctant admiration, while at the same time his heart leapt into his throat. He supposed that was just typical of Lois Lane, multiple Kerth award-winner. She couldn’t possibly just sit back and wait patiently for him to rescue her, could she? No. She had to risk life and limb to rescue
herself.
He’d find out from her later just why Lex Luthor was lying on the floor in what looked like a luxury hotel-room - highly anomalous in what looked like a high-tech command centre - holding his knee and moaning. For now, the most important thing was to get the woman he loved safely out of there.
Setting off at a pace no human could match, he sped along the corridors until he got to where he wanted to be. And then he stopped, and waited.
*********
So far, so good. No-one was following her. Yet.
She was breathless - how could she have just ignored her usual workout routine since she’d been married? It was amazing how unfit she could become in such a short time. Although, she reasoned as she ran, she probably wasn’t fully recovered yet from almost drowning.
This place was a maze! She had no idea where she was going; she just hoped that she was heading in the direction of a way out of there, instead of deeper and deeper into the heart of... whatever kind of structure this was. Lots of intersecting corridors. Doors everywhere. Cameras dotted around the place - she’d managed to avoid most of them, but it was too much to hope for that she’d evaded them all.
She hadn’t heard any sign of anyone following her. Yet. That was surprising - surely, even if she hadn’t been caught on camera, Lex would have raised the alarm?
Keep going. That was all she could do, she told herself, panting as she ran.
And then she turned a corner and ran smack into someone standing there. Someone tall and muscular and...
Oh god. She’d been caught.
His hands were on her arms, holding her firmly. She tried to struggle, but he was way too strong for her.
Think, Lois! She tried to hook her ankle around his the way she’d done with Lex, but before she could even make contact he’d wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet.
Feeling sick inside, she tried to wriggle. And then a soft, blissfully familiar voice met her ears.
“Are you
that unhappy to see me?”
“Clark!” she gasped. Relief coursed through her with the force of a body-blow.
He hadn’t forgotten her. He’d come for her. She was safe.
But then she remembered that they weren’t out of danger yet. “Clark! He’s got guards, and they’ll have guns...”
“Hold on tight,” he said calmly. “And just trust me.”
He adjusted his hold on her and broke into a run; gasping, she wrapped her arms around him and clung on. And her only impression was of speed.
Corridors, doors, everything around them became a blur. It should have been frightening, and yet she was only conscious of feeling safer, more protected than she ever had in her life. Clark’s grip on her was firm, his movements sure.
And then she heard shooting.
The fear returned, turning into panic. Clark was fast, but he couldn’t outrun a bullet! If he was hit... if he was killed...
“Don’t worry. I’m between you and any bullets,” he murmured.
She winced. “That’s what I’m afraid of!”
“Don’t be. Didn’t I tell you that I’m invulnerable?”
“
Now you tell me?” she exclaimed.
“Hang on,” he said again. And suddenly... they were climbing. In less than the blink of an eye, she saw daylight. Mountains. Snow. Trees. And then they were above even the highest peaks, with scenery flashing past so quickly she could barely take it in.
Safe.
And then the panorama settled down and became less of a blur, and she realised that Clark had slowed his pace. She saw rolling prairies below, and deduced that they’d outrun any pursuit, even assuming that Lex had been able to get into his helicopter that quickly.
“So tell me,” her rescuer said, sounding amused. “Just what did you do to him? I saw him writhing on the floor in agony.”
“I kicked him,” she said in satisfaction, and saw him wince. “Not there! I tripped him up and then kicked him hard in the knee as he was trying to get up.”
Clark smiled at her admiringly. “Nice work!”
“Yeah, well, I just wish I’d done it long ago.”
His arms tightened around her briefly. “You did it now.”
She rested against him in silence for a few minutes. Then, stirring, she asked, “Where was I, anyway?”
“Colorado. The Rocky Mountain national park.”
“Hmmm.” Well, she’d been on the right track. Just not Canada this time. And she’d still love to know why Luthor had built that fortress. How many other people had simply ‘disappeared’ and been kept there?
“Where are you taking me?” she asked after a moment.
“Not Smallville. That might not be the first place he’d look - he wouldn’t imagine that we could get there that quickly - but I bet he’d get his friends in the state police to go back to the farm and interrogate my parents anyway.”
That was true. At least Lex didn’t know what Clark could do... or did he? “Clark,” she began urgently. “Do you think they saw you fly?”
He shook his head. “They won’t have seen us at all. Not clearly.”
“But they were shooting...”
“They heard us. A couple of his guards were behind a door we passed. I was running faster than human speed, but nothing like as fast as I can go - at my fastest, I’m invisible to the human eye,” he explained, and once again Lois was awed at what this man could do. “But that’s not safe in an enclosed space, plus I was carrying you. So we’d have been an indistinct blur to them. I guess I kicked against something as I ran - almost inevitable in those narrow corridors - and they went out to investigate. I heard one of them say he hadn’t a clue what it was but given the way the cameras were playing up he wasn’t going to take a chance.”
So they were safe. If she was lucky, Lex was probably still having his guards comb every inch of his lair looking for her. Even if they found the hole in the roof Clark had flown her out through, they’d be searching the mountains and valleys within walking distance.
“Anyway, Smallville’s out. I thought about going to the last place he’d probably think of to look for you.”
“Where’s that?”
“Metropolis.”
A bark of laughter escaped her. “You’re right! He knows I’m on the run from him. Why would I go back to where I lived with him?”
“Exactly. I have a place there,” Clark continued. “It’s not much - a small apartment in a kinda seedy part of town. But there’s somewhere for you to sleep and I can keep an eye on you.”
“Sounds good to me,” she murmured. Especially the part about Clark watching over her...
“Sorry I took so long to come for you, by the way.” His voice was softly apologetic, clearly full of regret that she’d been left there so long. “I wanted to go after you immediately, but the staties didn’t leave - I think they thought I was going to try to follow the copter in the pickup. Anyway, once they finally left I was about to go look for you, but then Rachel turned up.”
“Rachel?” Lois was taken aback by her reaction to the name of a woman she didn’t even know. Was she actually jealous?
“She’s an old friend - we were at school together.” Oh. The girl next door. The worst kind. Lois winced. “She’s the local sheriff now - I called her earlier, thinking that you should talk to her.”
“Oh.” That was all it was? She hoped so, suddenly scared at how much Clark meant to her even though she’d already told him that she was falling in love with him. As he’d sworn he was falling in love with her. And that he’d wait for her.
“Anyway, I had to fill Rachel in, and then Jill called. And here’s the good news.” He sounded excited, as if he couldn’t wait to tell her.
“What?”
“We can prove that you didn’t take the sleeping pills yourself!”
Lois stared at him. “That’s great! How?”
She listened as he explained about the animal sedatives and the lab. “That’s really great,” she said again. “Of course, it’s - ”
“It’s not enough to get him,” Clark said simultaneously.
They even thought alike. After years of refusing to work with anyone else, Lois thought she might finally have found the one reporter she could stand as a partner.
“No. Because he’ll find a way to make that one go away. It’s not like we can prove that he
gave me the sedatives, after all,” she said with a grimace.
“Unfortunately,” Clark agreed.
“Yeah. So we need to figure out - ”
“- figure out what he might have had to do with the Planet bombing.”
“- just what I saw - What?” Lois gripped Clark’s shoulders and stared at him. “The Planet bombing? You think Lex was involved?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m guessing. But it was all pretty damned convenient for him, if you think about it.”
“I never did believe that Jimmy did it,” Lois said slowly. “And if I hadn’t been such a
wallower after it happened - I don’t believe I did that, by the way. I
never wallow! - I might actually have tried to look into it. Investigate. Talk to Jimmy. It’s just not like him to do something like that. He loved the Planet, almost as much as Perry did.”
“People don’t change that much,” Clark said softly. “So, unless your friend Jimmy was hiding his true nature all along, he didn’t do it.”
Lois fell silent as it occurred to her who
had been hiding his true nature all along - and how she had completely failed to notice.
**********
...tbc
