From last time:
He nodded. “This is going to get more and more dangerous. And not for the two of us.”
“I know,” she agreed. “But who do we give this story to? Who doesn’t have a family to protect? Or who wouldn’t worry for their own safety? And it’s not like we can just let this go and pretend it never happened.”
“You’re right,” he said as he lifted his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew there were sources who wouldn’t talk to Superman or Ultrawoman, but might talk to Lois Lane or Clark Kent. Frankly, it was still more likely that they would talk to Lois – even a year later and all his assiduous attempts at avoiding the spotlight, his profile was a little too high. “We should talk to my folks,” he said. Although he knew how they would respond. His mother would tell him that she wasn’t going to let gangsters and thugs intimidate him out of doing his job out of a concern for her safety or his father’s. But what about Jon? To an extent, his parents had assumed the risk by supporting him in becoming Superman. Jon hadn’t. If it started to get dangerous, they would have to get Jon and his parents, and her parents, too, out of town. He hated the thought, but hard choices were hardly new to him.
********
New stuff:
“There is no choice here,” his mother said firmly as she looked across the kitchen table at him. “You two have to go after these people.”
“You said yourself that they’re the biggest threat to this city,” his father agreed.
“But we can’t ignore how dangerous this is,” Lois countered.
“You’ve always taken care of us before, we trust that you’ll do it again,” Jonathan replied.
“And if it does get dangerous, it’s not that hard for us to leave the city,” Martha said matter-of-factly as she sipped her tea. “Do you have any good leads yet?”
Clark hesitated as he tried to figure out how to respond. “Honestly, the less you know about this, the safer you’ll be,” Lois said, obviating any need for him to say anything. He was thankful that she was taking the exact same position he was.
“We understand,” his father replied with a nod.
“We’re sorry you have to worry about stuff like this,” Clark said, his hands wrapped around his mug of tea.
“Don’t be,” his mother said as she reached across the table to give his hand a gentle squeeze. “You two have a job to do, and we will support you any way we can.”
“You always have,” Lois said with a smile.
********
Clark floated high overhead and listened in silence as yet another young woman told Lois—in broken English—about being promised a job as a nanny in America and then finding herself forced to work in a brothel. The story, like all the others, sickened him. But even though the young woman was afraid, she was giving them confirmation about the identities of the men responsible for their situation. So far, they’d gathered information on just the low level guys – the street thugs, the smugglers, the pimps, and sweatshop managers. Normally, the feds would try to ‘flip’ the little fish in order to get the big guys, but the Triads were a ruthless organization with reach deep within the prisons. The low level guys were afraid to talk and they didn’t believe the police could protect them. Others were true believers and knew that after a stretch in prison, they would be rewarded for their silence.
He listened as Lois tried to convince the young woman to talk to the police. Her response was typical – she was afraid of retribution, convinced that the Triads would make an example of her. She was also afraid that her status as an undocumented immigrant meant immediate deportation. But his wife was a rather convincing negotiator. Delivering a promise that Ultrawoman or Superman would escort the woman to speak with the police, she managed to coax out her acquiescence.
They were already spending a great deal of time helping the police keep their potential witnesses safely out of harm’s way. Even though he’d only been the managing editor for a few months, he was already on an alternative schedule. On Perry’s orders, he was working with Lois on the investigation much of the time. A few long minutes passed before Lois and the young woman walked out of the parking structure.
His wife looked up in the sky and made eye contact with him. With an almost imperceptible nod, she let him know it was time for him to make his appearance. He floated down from the sky and landed softly in front of them. The young woman looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. He introduced himself in Cantonese and got her permission to take her to the regional FBI office.
********
“You’ve done a hell of a job, Lois,” Dave Brewer, the Special Agent in Charge, said as he looked up from his desk. Unlike most of the feds Lois had met, Brewer was a meticulous dresser. His cuff links and banker collared shirts made him look more like a high priced lawyer or stock broker than a cop. His tie and suspenders always matched. And it didn’t matter what time of day or night it was, his sleeves were never rolled up. His collar button was never undone.
She smiled silently to herself. Brewer was a tough guy to impress. “But we’re still nailing the minnows,” she said.
“And you won’t be happy until you’ve nabbed a shark.”
“Neither will you,” she retorted as she leaned back in her chair. He shrugged, but didn’t disagree. “Any hope of flipping anyone?”
“Nah, the punks won’t talk,” he replied. “But with this affidavit, we can probably broaden our surveillance net. But don’t ask me for details.”
“I know. The less you tell me, the lower the chance that a defense attorney is going to claim the investigation was tainted.”
“I’m taking no chances with this one,” Brewer said.
“I get it,” she assured him. “I’ve got a few more leads…” she started.
Brewer practically jumped out of his oversized chair. “Don’t!” he shouted. “Don’t tell me what you’re doing. Don’t tell me what you’re up to. I don’t want to know.”
Lois held up her hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed,” she assured him. “I know you don’t want anyone to think you can’t do your own investigative work.”
He smirked. “More like I don’t want to catch the flak from whatever sort of trouble you manage to find.”
She stood up and started for the door. “I’ll see you around, Dave.”
“Stay safe, Lois,” Brewer replied.
Lois nodded and walked out of the agent’s office.
********
Clark stared at the hand-drawn chart they’d spread across his desk in the library. He didn’t like doing so much of this work at home, but it was still safer than leaving the research from the investigation at the office. Lois stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder.
“By now, the FBI should have wire taps on the pimp, smuggler, and the sweatshop manager that are still out on the street,” she said.
“Which means they’ll lead him to Huang, Johnny Tai, and whoever “the Dragon,” is,” Clark added.
“But they’re clearly not the brains or the power in this operation,” Lois said.
“Though they are one step closer to whoever’s at the top.”
She sighed. “This is taking forever,” his wife said.
Clark placed his hand on hers. “It’s only been a few weeks,” he said gently.
“And we’ve closed all the brothels and the sweatshops, but we haven’t managed to get anyone off the streets besides the low level punks.”
“This probably goes all the way back to Hong Kong, which means outside the feds’ jurisdiction,” Clark said, half to himself.
“But not outside ours.”
Clark frowned. “That’s assuming the Chinese government is willing to prosecute.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” she said softly.
He nodded in agreement. “We need to focus on going up the chain as far as we can. We’ll worry about the rest when it comes up.”
********
The sound of a heartbeat, rapid and uneven, caused her to slow down, but she didn’t dare stop. Someone was waiting for her. She shifted the bag of groceries she was carrying as she scanned the area. There was a young kid in the bushes, just between where she was and her own brownstone. The streetlights overhead had been broken, bathing the sidewalk in darkness.
She was walking into an ambush.
Lois kept walking. There was nothing the kid could do to hurt her, which meant that this was a chance to find out more about their targets. Besides, if she avoided him, she’d just be drawing more attention to herself. Pretending to be engrossed in searching for her keys, she allowed herself to be attacked from behind. The cold blade of a knife was suddenly pressed against her throat. The grocery bag fell to the ground, sending produce, bread, and eggs tumbling to the ground.
She could have easily broken his grip, but not if she wanted to keep her secret identity secret. The shallow sound of his breathing and his frantic pulse let her know that he was nervous. More nervous than she was, it seemed. But every cell in her body screamed out against just standing docilely in her captor’s grip. She tried to act the way a frightened woman would react to being assaulted just steps from her home. Lois grabbed the arm wrapped around her neck, but didn’t pull very hard.
“Don’t freaking scream, or I’ll kill you,” her captor whispered harshly. “Stay the hell out of Chinatown, lady. Unless you want something to happen to them.” He dropped a manila envelope on the sidewalk in front of her and gave her a hard shove forward, before turning to run away. She stopped to pick up the envelope, her heart leaping up in her throat as she opened it to find a set of grainy photographs.
Of her mother and Jon.
They were walking together in the park, smiling and unaware of the eyes, full of malice, focused on them as they enjoyed their afternoon.
Lois’s blood turned to ice in her veins. She couldn’t continue this investigation and keep constant vigil over her family. Her hands gripped the edges of the photos tightly. In an instant, she spun into the suit and took off into the night’s sky to follow her attacker. Trying to keep her anger in check as she followed the punk around the block and watched as he jumped on a motorcycle and took off toward Chinatown. He finally parked in an alley behind a dim sum place that she and Clark had already figured out was a money laundering front for the drug trade the Triads engaged in. She got a good enough look at her attacker’s face, taking mental note of his height and build so she could pick him out of a lineup.
Her attacker sought out an older man in a dark suit, sitting in a poorly lit corner of the restaurant. They started to speak in Cantonese, which meant she wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop. Reluctantly, she started back for home. There was nothing more she could do here and she needed to know that Jon and her family were safe.
********
The color drained from Clark’s face as he looked at the photographs. “They had to have been taken yesterday,” Lois said softly. “When my mother picked Jon up from nursery school.”
“We need to get them all out of the city,” Clark said definitively.
“I know,” she agreed. Lois sat down next to him at the kitchen table and reached out to take his hand. He interlaced their fingers, still staring at the pictures. A tense frown marred his features. “The guy who attacked me went into the Golden Palace. He talked to this guy,” she said as she picked up the legal pad on the table and sketched both her attacker and the older man.
Clark stared at the picture she handed him. “Ultrawoman should take this to the FBI. Tell them she followed the attacker,” he said.
“I’ll do it now,” she said. “Can you get our parents out of town?” She’d managed to keep the fact of Ultrawoman’s identity from her parents largely by never having her parents meet Ultrawoman. She doubted she could keep her parents from recognizing the superhero was their daughter if they actually met and interacted with her.
“Yeah, but I don’t think Smallville is safe enough,” he said, his voice gravelly. “The people who’re doing this won’t have any trouble finding the farm.”
“I know,” she agreed.
He dropped the drawing on top of the photographs. “Call your parents. Tell them to expect Superman in an hour.”
“Where are you going to take them?” she asked.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said. “Somewhere out of the way. If they don’t have time to pack, we can get their stuff to them later.”
“Okay,” she replied reluctantly. She wanted them to talk this out, but she felt the same urgency he did. They didn’t have time. Lois knew her parents would freak out. Her father would try to brush aside the risk. Her mother would angrily demand to know why she was doing something so dangerous that would put her family in jeopardy. Bracing herself for the uncomfortable phone calls she was about to make, Lois stood up, kissed her husband, and headed toward the living room.
********
Clark dropped his father off in front of the cabin on the large, placid lake near Watertown, far upstate near the Canadian border. He handed his father a large stack of bills, warning him not to use credit cards for any reason. He promised to return shortly with his mother and son. He’d already taken Lois’s parents out of the city – Ellen would be enjoying a long vacation in the Caribbean, while Sam had indicated his preference for some quiet fishing in the Catskills. He intended to check in on them frequently and hoped that he and Lois would be able to wrap up the investigation quickly. The situation was putting everyone on edge, including his usually unflappable father.
He wasn’t looking forward to having to fly with Jon. How exactly was an excited little four year old supposed to remain quiet about flying with Superman? Thankfully, with the summer vacation season over, the area was largely depopulated. There was a small general store about a mile and a half down the road from the cabin, but aside from stocking up on provisions, avoiding other people shouldn’t have been an issue.
********
Lois rubbed at her eyes as she stared at her computer’s screen. She barely noticed as Clark entered her office, carrying two mugs of coffee. Neither one of them had slept much in the last week and it was finally taking its toll. She hated being away from Jon. She’d flown over the cabin a few times and had even seen her in-laws, but she hadn’t hugged her little boy in days and it was driving her crazy. She talked to him every night on the pre-paid cell phones their paranoia had driven them to buy. And every night, when he plaintively asked when he would he would see his mommy and daddy again, she promised it wouldn’t be too much longer.
“Have you already done a sweep?” she asked softly. The newsroom was deserted, but she still spoke in hushed tones.
“Yeah,” he said as he sat down on the corner of her desk. “It was quiet.” Ever since the first raids, the Triad’s business had gone underground. The sweatshops and massage parlors were closed. Hundreds of undocumented workers were being processed by the feds – some would be sent back home. Others, whose testimony was necessary to get indictments and convictions, were receiving at least temporary status. That didn’t mean the Triads had given up. There were still drug, prostitution, and counterfeit goods rings in Metropolis that had to be connected to the powerful Asian crime syndicate. From their own surveillance, they knew the feds had bugged and tapped the phones at the Golden Palace and other establishments owned or frequented by suspected Triad leaders. It seemed like the Triads had realized it as well. Nothing interesting had happened at either location for days.
“I think I’m going to do some snooping around,” she said, not sure where she would start looking or even if it was a worthwhile endeavor.
“It’s late,” Clark ventured.
She glanced at her watch. It was after one in the morning. “I know, I won’t be too long,” she promised.
“Be careful,” he said as he leaned down to kiss her. She knew he’d been unnerved by the ‘attack’ on her outside their house the week before. It didn’t matter that she was invulnerable, he still worried.
“I will,” she said.
“I think I’m going to do a quick flyby the cabin, check on your folks, too,” he said. The house was too quiet. It was enormous and empty and devoid of life. She hated sleeping in it at night, knowing she should have been able to hear the heartbeats of her son and her in-laws, hearing nothing but silence instead. Maybe that was why she and Clark hadn’t slept at all the last week.
********
It was a few hours later when Lois finally returned to the brownstone. She slipped into the library’s annex and spun out of the suit before heading down to the bedroom—the only room in the house with a light on. Clark was sitting up in the bed, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He looked up at her with a weary smile and set the papers on the nightstand. “Anything?” he asked hopefully.
She started to peel off her clothes as she walked toward the bed. “I followed a couple of their foot soldiers to a warehouse near Hobbs Bay. They had a large shipment of heroin coming in. Somehow their smoke detectors went off,” she said with a bit of a smirk. “You know the water in those sprinkler pipes has often been standing for years. It’s like sludge, really. The cops and firefighters showed up and found, probably about three million dollars worth of totally ruined drugs.”
Lois slipped into the bed next to her husband. He shook his head. “That’s my girl,” he said.
She smiled in response and kissed Clark. “What I don’t get is why they’d risk moving that big a shipment of drugs now. They have to know that the feds are all over them.”
“Most of their operations in town have been shut down,” he said as he pulled her closer to him. “I’m not sure how long they can keep functioning here without some cash flow.”
“It still seems like a really stupid thing to do,” she replied. “Gutsy, but stupid.”
“But they were well outside Chinatown,” Clark said.
“That’s true,” she conceded. “And it isn’t like there was anyone high profile at the warehouse. The cops only busted a couple of street punks.”
“So they took a calculated risk,” Clark said.
“And it didn’t pay off. But we can’t keep treating this like a war of attrition.”
“I know,” he said as he kissed her temple. “We have to solve this.”
Lois nodded in silent agreement. “I miss Jon,” she said at last.
“So do I,” he responded. He stretched out to turn out the light and pulled her into his arms.
