Chapter Fifteen
For the next six nights, Lois staked out the museum from an office in a condemned building across the street. Nothing happened, except that her sleepiness at work prompted a pointed comment from Perry about how even Elvis had to rest between shows. Lois didn’t tell anyone what she was doing, because she wanted to break this story by herself, and short of following the trail of the guns all the way to Africa, this was her best shot at accomplishing her goal.
Superman flew by at odd intervals each of those nights on his patrol, but since he didn’t see any trucks he didn’t look any further. He never knew Lois was also watching the loading dock, and she never looked skyward to see him.
The following Tuesday night, Lois was about to leave her perch early when she heard a diesel engine rumbling down the street. She had her emergency band radio earphone in her ear, so she’d already heard that Superman was helping out at a nightclub fire on the north side of the city. A large number of police and fire units were assisting also, so she decided she wouldn’t call 9-1-1 unless there was a real emergency. A truck parking beside the museum probably wouldn’t count as an emergency in the dispatcher’s mind.
Lois watched the truck back up to the loading dock as she recorded the time in her notebook. All thoughts of sleep vanished as she watched four men and a forklift scurry to move several large covered pallets from the truck trailer and place them at the back of the dock. As soon as the truck was unloaded, the driver ran to the cab and pulled away. By the time he was cruising down the street again, the door to the dock was closed.
Lois copied down the license plate of both the cab and the trailer, then wrote the trailer number and the business name – Zelda’s Produce – in her notebook. She checked her watch. They’d emptied the trailer in less than ten minutes.
She had a lot more than when she’d started, but she still needed more before she could print it. She mentally ticked through her short list of contacts and found nothing. She needed someone inside the museum to give her information, someone she was confident wasn’t in on whatever deal this was. Could Claude help her? No. Claude was a selfish, self-serving pig. Claude would take the story from her and list her as additional research or a contributor, assuming he gave her that much credit. She wanted the banner all by herself on this one. Maybe Clark would know someone who –
And then it hit her. Clark did know someone. Lois didn’t even want to talk to that someone, much less get within ten feet of her. But she needed another source to take the next step. And contacting Lana Lang-Kent was the best option she had.
Lois slid from the building without being spotted. No one in the criminal conspiracy knew she’d been there. She walked two blocks to her Jeep unseen, then drove to the Kent’s apartment building and steered down into the parking garage. She’d already memorized their address, telling herself she might need to beat up Lana in the near future. Now she would be asking for her help. It was a crazy world.
When she was parked, Lois picked up her cell phone and dialed the Kent’s number. The phone rang until the voicemail picked up, so Lois hung up, waited ten seconds, and hit redial.
This time a sleepy woman’s voice answered. “’Lo?”
“Lana? Lana Lang-Kent?”
“Yeah. Whozis?”
“Lois Lane.”
There was a pause. Lois could hear Lana moving in her bed. “Say that name again.”
“This is Lois Lane! I need to talk to you.”
“Call my office in the morning and make an appointment.”
“I need to talk to you now!”
Lois heard a groan and a bump, then a muffled exclamation. Lana came back on the phone. “It’s almost two in the morning! Why can’t this wait?”
“It has to do with the museum!”
“Once again, call my office and make an app – “
“You stupid idiot! There was another truck there tonight!”
Lana paused again, then Lois heard her take a deep breath. “Where are you now?”
“Parking garage, level one.”
“Take the elevator to the sixth floor. Apartment six-oh-six. I’ll be dressed by the time you get up here.”
“Got it. Put some coffee on. You’re going to need it.”
“You’d better be right about this.”
“Don’t worry, I am.” Lois hung up and stepped out of her Jeep. Almost as an afterthought, she tossed her notebook onto the passenger seat and picked up a blank one.
She found the elevator and the front door with no problem. Lana opened it almost as soon as Lois knocked. They made a matched pair, since Lana had also donned jeans, sneakers, and a dark pullover shirt.
She didn’t notice the open stairway door at the end of the hallway, behind which sat a man with a phone at his ear.
Lois looked around and felt a pang of jealousy. The front room was neat and tidy, but obviously lived in. It looked like Clark and Lana were happy together. The thought bothered her in a way she couldn’t identify.
Lana locked the door behind Lois and sat down on the sofa. “There’s your coffee, sweetener on the left and cream on the right.”
“Thanks.” She stirred in sweetener and sipped it. Way better than the standard issue sludge in the newsroom, she thought, although she’d never admit it to Lana.
Lana waited until Lois put down her cup. “Why exactly are you here?”
“I overheard Clark talking about late night deliveries at the museum that you weren’t notified about. I decided to check it out myself.” She looked around. “Your husband still asleep?”
“No. He’s – out covering a story. Something about a fire.”
Lois nodded. So Kent was either chasing ambulances or Superman, and she hoped it was the latter. It would be more professional.
Like she really cared, she thought.
Maybe this was better, anyway. If Clark had been here, she would’ve had to tell him everything, too, and she still wanted the solo byline. She did care about that.
She refocused on Lana. “No problem. I need to see you anyway. Is there anyplace you could store a truckload of stuff near the loading dock in the museum?”
“Of course there is. We get large shipments fairly regularly. There’s a seven thousand square foot storage room behind the docks that’s over two stories high.” At Lois’s surprised expression, Lana added, “Some of those dinosaurs were pretty tall.”
“Yeah. Right. I forgot about that. So, if you had a bunch of covered pallets stacked back there, no one would think anything was wrong?”
“Not unless someone ordered a physical inventory. That’s so labor-intensive that we don’t do it unless there’s a good reason.”
“When’s the last time you were in that room?”
“About a week – no, about ten days ago. It was nearly empty. Why? What’s in there now?”
“I don't know, but it came in on six or seven pallets, each about five feet high and covered with a tarpaulin. They were in a hurry to get it off the truck, too.”
“So why come to me? And why at this time of night?”
“I want to get in there and get a look at what’s under those tarps. You can let me in.”
“Let you in? At this time of night?” Lana gaped at her. “Are you crazy? I’d not only get fired, I’d get arrested! I don’t have the authority to go poking around in there at night! Especially not on mere suspicion!” She stood. “Ms. Lane, you are beyond audacious. Clark was right about you. You’re like a mad dog with a kitten in its mouth when you’re on a story.”
Lois also stood. “I thought we were on a first-name basis.”
“You thought wrong! Now get out of here and get some sleep! If this still makes sense in the light of day you can take it to the police or the district attorney! Out!”
Lana flipped the locks open as Lois stood beside the doorframe. “You’re making a mistake. We don’t know how long that stuff will be – “
Lois looked through the open door and jumped back. The door slammed into Lana and the blow sent her staggering across the room and then over the couch, momentarily stunning her. By the time she recovered, Lois was bound and gagged and a large man wearing a ski mask was pointing a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun at Lana’s head.
The man restraining the still-struggling Lois reached down and slapped her in the side of the head. Lana could see Lois’s eyes rattle as she fought to stay conscious.
The man standing over Lois looked at Lana and asked, “Where’s your husband?”
“He – he’s out.”
“Huh. Out with some other chick, I bet.”
“No. He’s covering a story. He’s a reporter.”
“We know that. He at that fire we set at the waterfront?”
They ignored Lana’s shocked gasp. The man with the shotgun said, “Hey! Why don’t you keep your big mouth shut?”
“Get off my back, moron!”
Shotgun Man almost took a step towards his partner, then stopped himself. “I’ll talk to you about this later.” He gestured at Lana. “You two babes comin’ with us. Now.”
The other man picked up Lois’s notepad and handed it to Lana. “Leave a note for your man. Tell him you’re visiting your friend here, maybe for a couple of days. Got that?”
Lana nodded and slowly began writing. She knew that when Clark read the note, he’d realize something was seriously wrong. She only hoped he could find them quickly.
*****
Invisible at the speed he was moving, Superman flashed into the apartment through the kitchen window and spun into Clark’s nighttime attire. He stopped in surprise when he saw the two coffee cups in the sink. Was Lana having a bad night? She’d been asleep when he’d left. He lifted the cups and sniffed. One was black coffee, obviously Lana’s. The other one had sweetener in it.
Clark frowned. Someone had been there since he’d left. Awfully late for a casual visitor. He sniffed the air, hoping for some kind of tell-tale scent, but all he detected was stale coffee.
He padded into the living room and spotted the note on the coffee table. He picked it up and read it.
-----
Honey, guess what! Lois called! I was so excited to hear from her that I decided to spend the night with her. We have a lot of best-friend catching-up to do, so I’ll see you some time tomorrow, if then! Sorry about the short notice, but you know how us girls are! Love you! P.S. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge!
-----
He remembered Lana’s comment that if she ever told him there was leftover pizza in the house she’d be lying. Well, somehow Lana’d gotten into trouble. Lois had to be Lois Lane, but why would Lana go when Lois called? Best friends, they sure weren’t. It had to be something that Lois was working on. But what could Lois be working on that might involve Lana?
He snapped his fingers. The museum! Lois must have overheard something that he and Paula had said and decided to run with it! And now she’d endangered not only herself, but Clark’s wife! He promised himself he’d get them both out of trouble and then hold Lois motionless while Lana pounded on her.
He moved further into the room, checking the floor for clues with his special vision. He saw two sets of large booted footprints, and what seemed to be the imprint of a small body on the floor. No blood, no other signs of struggle, no drag marks, and what appeared to be four pairs of shoeprints, two male and two female, in the carpet leading to the door. They had been alive when they’d left.
He shuddered as he considered the implications of his thoughts. He wasn’t sure either of them would be alive for much longer. He needed to find them quickly.
*****
Lana sat in the back of the delivery van with a dazed Lois beside her. Lois had tried to break away just before they’d entered the van, but the man who’d hit Lois before had tackled her and clubbed her senseless. Lana couldn’t tell if Lois had a concussion or worse, but she obeyed the men’s every command. She tried to tell herself she was doing it to take care of Lois, but she suspected she was simply terrified of being killed.
Lana called to the kidnapper in the front seat. “Hey! Hey, mister! Will you let me untie her?”
He rubbed his chin. “She clipped me pretty good. Maybe you should leave her tied up.”
“But she’s almost unconscious! She can’t hurt you now! And she might choke or have a stroke or something with her arms pulled back like that!”
He frowned, then nodded. “Okay. But you keep her still. She jumps either of us and I blow you away. Understand?”
Lana nodded back, then began releasing Lois’s bonds.
The van didn’t head towards the museum as she’d expected it to. Instead, they drove to the waterfront, where a small freighter was being loaded with a number of pallets of similar size and shape.
When they opened the door, Lana cried out, “Why am I here? I don’t know what’s going on! I don’t know what you’re doing! Please let me go!”
The man with the shotgun gestured to her. “You know enough to be dangerous. The boss needs to decide what to do with you.”
“What about Lois? She can’t even sit up, much less walk!”
He lifted the shotgun. “If she can’t walk, I’ll have to take care of her right here.”
Almost frantic, Lana grabbed Lois’s collar and shook her. “Lois, wake up! You have to wake up! Come on! Get up or they’ll kill you!”
Lois’s eyes focused on Lana for a moment, then she grunted and rolled to one side. “Okay. Gettin’ up. One-two-three-four.”
With Lana’s help, she sat up and scooted to the door of the van. She leaned on Lana as they were escorted to the gangplank of the ship. Lana balked and turned to face the shotgun-toting thug.
“Lois needs a doctor! Please let us go! Please!”
Lois stumbled towards the gangplank, dragging Lana with her. Her voice was strained with the effort to speak coherently. “Come on, Lana. We – we have to get on board or they’ll kill us here. Longer we live, better chance we got.” Lois groaned and lost her footing. “Help me?”
Her plaintive tone jarred Lana into action. She lifted Lois’s arm and helped her climb the incline. Shotgun Man called out, “Turn left and go down to the next door.”
A sailor called to him, “They ain’t doors, they’s hatches!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You girls go on in through that there ‘hatch’ and sit down. This’ll be locked from the outside, so don’t try nothing.”
He shut the hatch and spun the wheel. Lana watched the door lugs close, securing them in their prison, by the light of a single forty-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. She lowered Lois to the cleaner of the two cots in the cabin and looked for anything to treat the other woman’s wounds.
Lois reached out and grabbed Lana’s wrist with a surprising amount of strength. “Shh! I’m not hurt that badly.”
Lois sat up quietly and pulled Lana down beside her. “Lois! That guy whacked you pretty hard! How did – “
“Shhh! Inside voice, okay? Talk like you’re talking to a sick person, quiet and soft.”
“Okay, but why? And why aren’t you really hurt?”
“He nailed me pretty good but I rolled with the blow. If they think I’m hurt badly, they won’t expect me to make a move.”
“You can’t stop twelve-gauge buckshot with attitude.”
“No, but maybe I can get close enough to take it away from him. Second-degree brown belt, remember?” She felt her head. “Ow!”
“Let me look. This isn’t too bad, it’s just a narrow scalp cut. I think there’s a first aid kit over the sink. Sit still and let me treat it. You don’t want it to get an infection.”
“That’s not my greatest worry right now.”
Lana hesitated, then continued. “No, I guess not. But we need to stay optimistic, don’t you think?”
Lois stared for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”
She was silent as Lana cleaned her wound. “Okay, it’s done, unless you want a head wrap.”
“Is it still bleeding?”
“No.”
“Then forget the wrap. Just put a piece of gauze on it and tape it down.”
“Tape won’t stick to your hair. I’d have to cut it down to the scalp.”
Lois’s eyes flashed and she taught Lana a new phrase. “Then forget it. We’ll have to make our move when they come back.”
“Why then?”
“Unless you have a cutting torch hidden in your bra, we’re not leaving this room until they open the door. Besides, they probably have to talk to the boss so he or she can decide what to do with us.”
“Oh. That’s encouraging, I suppose.”
“Really? I don’t exactly have warm fuzzies about it right now.”
“It could be worse.”
Lois gave her a disgusted look. “How could it be worse?”
“At least we have water to drink, a toilet and tissue, and each other’s company.”
“Oh, yeah, all the comforts of home. I’m sure they put us in the executive stateroom.” She lay back on the cot. “Wake me when the butler brings our orange juice in the morning. Make sure he trims the crust off my toast and brings raspberry syrup for my Belgian waffles.”
Lana frowned at her. “You always this happy-go-lucky?”
Lois looked at her. “Beats being a cynic. Why don’t you find a salsa station on the stereo and work on your dance moves?” She frowned. “But be real quiet, okay? You’ve slept since I have and I’m about worn out.”
*****
Clark checked the Planet building, Lois’s apartment (he’d found the address by X-raying Perry’s Rolodex file), the museum, and various points in between. Nothing. He was starting to get a little frantic, so he stopped on the roof of his apartment building and forced himself to be calm.
He began listing aloud what he knew. “One: Lois is chasing a gun-running story. Two: She saw, or thinks she saw, something that Lana could help her with. Three: Both of them are missing. Four: I don’t have a four!” He punched one fist into his other hand out of frustration. “Okay, calm down. Focus. It’s now past four in the morning and I don’t know where they are. Wait. Maybe I can pick up their trail in the parking garage.”
He flashed downstairs to the parking area and glanced around. “Lois’s Jeep! Dummy! Of course she drove here.” He looked through the window and saw her notebook.
He yanked the door open, breaking the lock. I’ll apologize to her later, assuming I don’t kill her first, he thought, and opened the notebook. He quickly found the entries he was looking for.
*****
The desk sergeant stared glumly at the anxious young man in front of him. “Sir, you really should fill out a missing persons report, or you should if your wife stays gone for more than forty-eight hours. I understand that you’re concerned. I understand that you two haven’t been married long. I understand that this is the first night she’s spent apart from you since you were married. Are you sure you didn’t have a fight with her? Maybe she went home to visit her mother. Sometimes young wives do that, you know.”
Clark was close to losing it. “Look! My wife and a reporter for the Daily Planet are missing and I can’t find them! This is a police matter! An urgent one!”
“Sir, we can’t go looking for adults who haven’t been missing for at least – “
Clark slapped the desk sharply and raised his voice again. “They aren’t just missing! They’ve been kidnapped!”
“Sir, without proof there’s really nothing – “
“Where’s your supervisor? Where’s a cop who wants to do his job?”
A tall, thin man with round glasses stepped out of the hallway behind the sergeant’s desk. “Whittaker, we’re trying to finish our paperwork back here. What’s the problem?”
“Sir, this man insists his wife was abducted and he wants us to go after her.”
Clark skipped past the desk, ignoring the sergeant’s warning drawl. “Lana Lang-Kent from the Museum of Natural History and Lois Lane of the Daily Planet are missing! Someone needs – “
“Lois Lane? Lane is missing?” Clark nodded. The man threw his hands in the air. “Why didn’t you say so? Come with me.”
The man guided Clark to his office. “Don’t think we’ve met. Inspector Bill Henderson, MPD.”
“Clark Kent, Daily Planet.”
Henderson stopped. “This better not be research for a story, Kent.”
“No! They’re really missing! I don’t pull stuff like this!”
They started moving again. “Lois does. That her notebook?” Clark nodded as they stepped into an office. “Give it to me.”
“The last page is all that’s important right now.”
Henderson read it and nodded. “How’d you get it?”
“Her Jeep was parked in our parking garage. I saw it on the front seat and broke in.” Clark met Henderson’s glance. “I’ll apologize later.”
“Good attitude. Wish I could use that line sometimes. What makes you think they were abducted?”
Clark handed Lana’s note to him. “Lana and Lois aren’t exactly what you’d call close friends.”
Henderson glanced sharply at Clark, then read the note. “Any idea where they were taken?”
Clark relaxed slightly as he realized that the inspector believed him. “I checked Lois’s apartment, the museum, the Planet, and a couple of other places before I came here. I don’t know where else to look.”
“What was Lois working on?”
Lois is on a first name basis with a police inspector, thought Clark. Don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’ll have to find out more about that when we get them back. “She had a bee in her bonnet about a gun-running ring on the East Coast sending – “
Henderson’s head snapped up. “What!” He slapped the intercom on his desk. “Brenda! Get the local ATF rep on the phone now!” He jumped up and yelled out into the hallway. “Somebody wake up the precinct captain and get him here ASAP! Sheesh, this just keeps getting better and better.” He turned back to Clark. “You have no idea what this is about, do you?”
Clark shrugged. “Apparently not. What’s with the Feds and the captain?”
“Lois was trying to find out where these gun-runners were warehousing their inventory before shipping it overseas. I think – “
Clark’s eyes brightened. “They were using the museum as a staging point!”
“Not bad, Kent. We just got word tonight that the Army caught a captain and a couple of non-coms trying to sneak off a base in Georgia with a truckload of heavy machine guns and ammunition. I guess they got greedy.”
“Or they’re trying to fill one last order.”
“Yeah, we thought of that one too. Problem is, we don’t know how they’re getting the goods to their customers.”
Clark thought hard for a moment. “A ship. A small to medium sized freighter, probably registered in some small West African country with little or no regulation. We have to check on ships that are leaving in the next couple of days.”
“That’s why I called the ATF. Once they get on the ship, MPD can’t touch them. It becomes a matter for the Coast Guard and Federal law enforcement. Our jurisdiction ends at water’s edge unless we’re in hot pursuit.”
Clark gritted his teeth. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait for help. Right now, that’s all we can do.”
Clark shook his head. “Inspector, you go ahead and do what you need to do. I’m going to see what I can do.”
“Hold it, Kent! You can’t legally board any ship without the captain’s invitation, and I doubt they’ll buy any cover story you might come up with.”
Clark fixed him with a knife-edged glare. “I’ll find them, Inspector, and I won’t break one law doing it. You have my word.”
Henderson shook his head and stood between Clark and the doorway. “I can’t let you go, Kent. You’ll just get in the way and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Clark let his shoulders sag in apparent defeat. Henderson relaxed a bit. “That’s better. I understand your feelings, but you can’t – hey!”
The moment Henderson turned away, Clark was past him and out the door. He ran as fast as he dared past the front desk and slammed out the front door. He crossed the street into a dark alley and launched himself into the air, confident that the night would hide his unorthodox escape.
It did. The three officers who thought they’d trapped him in the alley received a highly creative tongue-lashing from Inspector Henderson, who never quite believed that Kent could move as quickly as he would’ve had to in order to get away from them had they been doing their jobs correctly.
*****
The tall, muscular longshoreman bumped through the press of men on the docks as dawn began to peer over the watery horizon. He stopped beside a group standing outside the harbormaster’s office.
“Hey you! What’s all the ruckus? What’s going on?”
“You ain’t heard?”
The young, bearded man scowled at the older, shorter dockworker. “If I’d heard I’d not ask, now, would I?”
“Naw, guess not. Some ship took off without clearance about three hours ago. Nearly ran down a tug doin’ it. Left about a ton of cargo still sitting on the docks, too. The Coast Guard is royally – “
“What ship was it?”
The man snorted and turned. “Hey! Briscoe! What was the ship that left in such a roaring hurry this morning?”
“Who wants t’ know?”
The bearded man called out, “I was supposed to report for duty this morning, but I can’t find the vessel.”
“Ah. ‘Twas the ‘Star of the Amazon,’ bound for Ecuador. That yer billet?”
“No. I’m headed north, not south. Thanks, I’ll keep looking.”
He turned and trudged off. As he turned a corner and headed into shade, Clark pulled off the fake beard and the woolen cap. He looked around and saw several people, so he kept walking.
He finally found an empty alley and ducked into it. A moment later, Superman’s blurred form whooshed into the sky and out over the ocean.
