In case you missed it…
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Operation ArgusPart 5
Stratus Avenue was blocked off to traffic 2 blocks from the demolition site, but Lois could see the dust swirling in the air even as she and Jimmy climbed out of their taxi. A flash of their press badges got them past the barricades, and it was only a quick jog to the scene of the accident. Debris was scattered all over the street, and a car on the opposite side of the street was smashed in by a large piece of concrete. Lois winced and hoped no one had been in the car when it was hit. Jimmy immediately started taking pictures of the scene. Leaving him to it, she worked her way closer in and watched for a flash of red cape.
“If you’re looking for Superman, he’s already been and gone.”
Lois closed her eyes and took a deep breath before turning around to face Linda King from the Metropolis Star. The woman’s suit emphasized her hourglass figure, and her hair was perfectly coiffed. Anyone who didn’t know better would think she was a TV news stringer, not a writer. Linda and Lois had been rivals in college, and the rivalry continued in their professional lives, though it had cooled a bit in the last few years as they matured. But Linda had obviously decided to grab an opportunity to needle Lois a bit.
“Hello, Linda. Has he been gone long?”
“Only a couple of minutes. You need to get back on the treadmill, Lois, you’re slowing down.”
“And I suppose you got some great quote that’s just going to wipe the Daily Planet off the map?” Lois snarked.
Surprisingly, Linda’s expression became a bit sheepish. “Actually, no. He didn’t stop to talk to anyone except the foreman and then the fire chief, then took a few victims straight to the hospital. But I did manage to get a few photographs. Superman’s first rescue in Metropolis since he returned, big story, Lois!” She made a big show of looking at her watch. “Oh, look at the time! I really better get my pictures and notes back to the Metropolis Star so I can write this up. ‘Ta!”
As Linda walked away, Lois reminded herself that the reason she would always be better than Linda is that the other woman stayed at the surface of any event, more interested in the immediate outcome than the underlying story. And if the large construction sign on the fence declaring the company in question to be Church Construction & Demolition was any indication, this could turn out to be a lot more than a simple Superman rescue.
With that in mind, Lois went in search of the company foreman on site. She was pointed to the back of a firetruck, where the foreman sat wiping sweat from a balding head and fiddling with a cell phone. “Mr. Hocklander, I’m Lois Lane with the Daily Planet. Can you answer a few questions for me?”
“Uh,” Hocklander shoved the cell phone into his pocket. “I don’t know if I really should, uh, Ms., uh -“
“Lane,” she supplied, sizing him up. He looked ready to bolt - time to start with some soft questions to loosen him up. “I’d just like some background information on the site, like who owns it and whether Church Construction just has the demolition part or the full construction.”
“Oh, well, yeah, the site was purchased last year by the city. We won the contract to tear down the existing structure and replace it with another one - a community center or something, I think.” He twisted his dirty handkerchief around one hand. “I’m not sure, I’m just on the demo job.”
“When was Church Construction awarded the contract?”
“July, I think. No, wait, had to be June, it takes at least three months to get a demo permit, though I could swear it was July…” Hocklander shook his head. “Sorry, it’s a little fuzzy right now, after all that happened.”
“That’s alright.” Lois didn’t want him to get anxious about things he couldn’t remember, she needed him to keep talking. “So you only started the work this month?”
“Well, end of August. We had to clear out the building first and have city inspectors come through to verify the demolition plans. Today’s D-day, obviously, uh, that is, demolition day, when the building actually comes down.”
Hocklander had relaxed a little, explaining the routine of the demolition project. “This was designed to be a staged building implosion, a very controlled scenario. This minimizes the disruption time to the neighborhood - usually we can implode the building in a single day, and clear out the rubble within two or three days with minimal excavation equipment. It’s done with a series of small, timed explosions to direct the building inward. But what happened here - “ he gestured to the large pieces of concrete scattered around the street in front of them, “this never should have happened.”
Hoping she’d softened him up enough, Lois went after what she really wanted to know. “So what did happen?”
“Honestly, Ms. Lane? I have no idea.” He unwrapped the handkerchief and wiped at his head again. “I checked the demo charges myself, everything was done exactly to the plan, I don’t understand why the building exploded.”
“Mr. Hocklander, who approved the demolition permit for the city?”
The man tensed up. “I, uh, I don’t really remember. You’d have to ask someone in the office about that.”
Lois sensed the interview was pretty much over when she saw him start to fiddle with the cell phone again in his pocket. “I think that about does it for now. Can I call you if I have any more questions?”
“Yeah, uh, if you call the office, they’ll forward you to my cell on site.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hocklander.”
He just shrugged at her as she walked away. She could see the fire chief consulting with someone in an MPD jacket in the distance. Maybe they’d already have some information on the investigation.
“Excuse me!” She called as she jogged over, waving for attention.
The fire chief’s head came up, and he gave her half a smile. She was relieved to see it was Chris Martin, he was always cooperative. “Ms. Lane, I thought I saw you around earlier.”
“You know me, I go where the smoke is.” She stuck out a hand toward the investigator, who she could now see was a middle-aged man with dark skin and a growing midsection. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet.”
The investigator returned the handshake gingerly. “Matt Cannes, Metropolis Police Department.”
Lois just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes - who else would be wearing an MPD jacket at an accident scene? “So what can you tell me about the accident?”
“Not much so far,” Cannes responded. “We’ll begin a thorough investigation starting tomorrow after the dust has cleared an our inspectors have checked for any remaining live explosives.”
“I heard Superman took some victims to the hospital. How many people were injured?”
“27 injured, 5 critically. Those are the ones we sent with Superman, he could get them to the hospital faster than an ambulance. 10 were minor injuries and were treated by the paramedics.”
“Any likelihood one of the criticals won’t make it?”
“I don’t have the information to comment on that at this time.”
“How about leads on how this happened? Any evidence of tampering with the equipment, or negligence?”
“Again, Ms. Lane, I can’t comment on that until we begin our investigation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, please.” Cannes offered a tight smile then walked away.
Lois turned to Chief Martin. “Boy, I bet he’s fun at parties.”
Martin chuckled. “Cannes is a bit of a straight arrow, but he’s a good guy. He’ll get to the bottom of things.”
“How about you, any comments about what caused this?”
“Nothing on the record, but if I were one to speculate,” he raised an eyebrow at her, “which, of course, I’m not, I might speculate that they used the wrong charges. The force of the explosion here is at least 10 times what should have been used for taking down a building this size.” Then he raised a finger at her. “But don’t go in looking for any evidence or anything, there won’t be much left in the way of the setup. Most likely that’ll be analyzed with a computer simulation.”
Lois threw up her hands. “Who, me? I wouldn’t dream of going into a demolished building.” She smiled as he snorted. “But thanks for the tip.”
“Anytime. So did you get a chance to say hello to our boy in blue?”
“No,” her face fell a bit. “By the time I got here, he was already gone.”
“Yeah, he came in and out pretty quick. Only stopped long enough to ask what we needed him to do, put out the bit of fire there was and then whisked off the victims. He didn’t even come back after taking the last one.” Martin shook his head. “If he hadn’t called me by name I wouldn’t even be certain he’d recognized me.”
“He’s certainly kept himself busy the last few days.”
“Probably just readjusting.” Martin grinned. “Nobody’s ever happy after getting back to work after a long vacation, right?”
“Uh, sure.” Lois gave him a strange look, but the chief just shrugged. “Well, I better go track down Jimmy and get going.”
“Your photographer? I think I saw him heading to the far side of emergency vehicles a couple minutes ago.”
“Thanks, Martin. See you at the next disaster.”
“I’ll be counting on it.”
She quickly found Jimmy and the two started walking back to the open street. “Get anything good?”
“Nothing fantastic. I can’t believe we missed Superman, Perry’s gonna shoot me.” Jimmy lowered his voice to imitate their boss. “Our readers don’t want to see Superman standing behind a podium, they want to see him in action! Action, people, we need action shots!”
“Yeah, well, you’re only human, Jimmy.”
“Can you remind the Chief of that?” Jimmy grinned at her laughter. “Seriously, though, I was hoping to say hi to the guy. Tell him it’s nice to have him back, you know?”
“Yeah,” Lois agreed, a slightly wistful tone in her voice, “I know what you mean.” She looked at her watch, seeing it was now well after 12. “Want to grab something to eat? I don’t think I’m going to go straight back. This’ll be a quick write-up, and Henderson said he has something for me at the precinct.”
“Sure, I’ll just text the photo editor to let me know if anything comes up. How do hamburgers sound?”
“Mmmm,” Lois pretended to swoon, “sounds perfect!”
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Lunch lasted a little longer than Lois expected, and then Henderson wasn’t around when she arrived at the precinct. So she took the time on her cell phone to call in the Stratus Avenue accident story and then check in with Stephanie on her Argus research. It didn’t sound like she was having much luck so far, and was going to spend the afternoon in the morgue with the Planet’s microfiche collection. Henderson walked in the front lobby just as she was finishing the conversation, and Lois waved for his attention. “Thanks, Stephanie, if you have to leave before I get back just leave it on my desk.” She snapped her phone closed and stood up from the lobby bench she was parked on. “Long lunch today, Henderson, you’re not seeing another reporter on the side, are you?”
“One of you is more than enough,” he responded drily, removing his sunglasses and tucking them into a pocket. Lois followed him into the stairwell up to the offices. “All of this is still background, Lane, nothing goes to print -“
“Aw, c’mon, Bill, you telling me I can’t print anything about this yet?”
“This is an ongoing investigation, Lane, we haven’t even started drafting a press release.” Once upstairs, he quickly ushered her into his office. “I think this is a bit bigger than even you expected when you found that first cache of weapons.”
“Really?” Lois closed the office door and leaned up against it, her way of saying neither of them were leaving until she had the whole story. “Just how big?”
Henderson pulled a think file out of his drawer and passed it over to her to look through. “This is only for you to look at here, but it’s photos of the evidence we picked up and copies of the paperwork.”
Lois whistled as she skimmed through it. “When you said a shipment, I expected a couple of crates, not a whole truck.”
“And not just weapons, either. There were military grade explosives, and even a couple of surface-to-air missiles included in there.”
“How the hell are they getting all this into the city?” Lois asked rhetorically. “You said something about picking up a delivery guy?”
“Yeah,” Henderson frowned, “but I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with him. He hasn’t lawyered up, but he’s not talking, either. Whoever he works for is scarier than prison.”
Lois flipped through the photos, wishing she could get copies of them. “The packing of these is pretty straightforward, doesn’t even look like they’re trying to hide what the cargo is. This can’t be a case of disguised material making it past customs at the port.”
“But there’s enough salt on the crates that these are definitely coming in through the port. Either they’ve found a way around customs completely, or they have someone on their payroll.”
“Gotta be more than just one to get full truckloads like this past security.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. And, Lois, I haven’t told you the worst part.”
“Oh?”
“We found a copy of the inventory list in the front of the truck. We only got half the shipment.”
“Oh my gosh.” Lois flipped the file over and found the inventory list at the back. “This is enough for someone’s own personal army. What is going on?”
“Wish I knew.” Henderson sat down behind his desk. “Given the scope of this, Customs & Border Control is calling in the FBI. I expect them to be here and pick up our suspect by the end of the day. At that point, anything else that comes up, we’ll be giving to them.”
Lois grimaced, knowing that meant she’d be cut out of the loop. “Any chance you can-“
“Nope.”
“I didn’t even finish asking my question!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Henderson smirked, “my hands are tied. I’m already toeing the line here, as far as anyone else in the precinct is concerned, you’re only here to confirm your statement about the first shipment we found.”
“Dang.” Lois studied the inventory list a few more minutes, trying to memorize some of the more unusual items included. “Can you at least tell me how and where you got this one?”
“North 4th Street and Clinton Ave, about 2am. We got lucky - a drunk driver pulled right in front of the truck before it could stop, and there happened to be a patrol car within sight. Considering the other guy was clearly drunk and at fault, Officer Menkel thought it was pretty strange when the trucker tried to take off on him.”
“That’s gotta be one hell of an accident report.” Sighing, Lois handed the file back over to Henderson. “If I find something on this, should I call you or the FBI?”
“Me. I’ll let you know if you should take it straight to them after or if I can just pass it on.”
“Got a name for the driver? Picture?”
“Prints came back as a match on three different names, so the guy’s been around. We’re still working on narrowing down his actual history.”
“So he’s a pro. I doubt he’ll say anything to you guys.”
“Agreed.” Henderson stood and gestured at the door. “May I?”
Lois waited for a minute as though making up her mind, then exaggerated her movements as she opened the door and stepped out. “You know, some guys are willing to open up a bit to someone without a badge.”
“Oh, no. No way am I going to explain to the FBI why a reporter was talking to their suspect in holding. Sorry, Lane, can’t give you anything on this one.”
“Oh, well, it was worth a try.” As Henderson started to follow her, Lois gently pushed his shoulder. “I can see myself out. You get back to keeping the city safe.”
“So you can get lost and wind up by the holding cells? Nuh uh, you’re getting an escort.”
Lois glared at him. “I’ve got to find some cops who don’t know me so well.”
“I find you robbing the cradle, Lane, I’ll write you up for corrupting our junior officers.”
Lois couldn’t help but laugh at that one.
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