From last time:
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.
********
New Stuff:
“You think it’s easy convincing guys to give up a good deal in Hong Kong to come here?” Johnny shouted angrily. “I’ve got no soldiers left. The damn FBI has picked them all up. When you have no one left to work in your business, you have no business, get it?”
Dragon leaned back in his chair, silently watching the younger man pace and rant in the cheap hotel room. It wasn’t that he didn’t share Johnny’s anger, it was simply that he knew that undirected rage would accomplish nothing. Dragon had been sent to Metropolis two years ago as a Vanguard, hoping to establish here a whole new front of operations for the Triads, something to rival Hong Kong or Macau. He’d been under constant scrutiny, always aware that his every move was being considered and evaluated. Hong Kong had initially kept him on a tight leash. Eventually, the restrictions on his activities had eased and careful supervision was eventually replaced with a tacit agreement between him and the higher ups. If he continued to succeed, he would be rewarded with increasing autonomy and a larger share of the profits. If he failed…well, failure was an outcome too unpleasant to contemplate. By any measure, he’d been successful. He’d diversified operations and had spread the Triads’ reach beyond Chinatown to all of Metropolis’s underworld.
All that had changed barely a month ago. Now he was under fierce pressure to salvage what was left of the organization’s operations. But with all of their muscle behind bars, their most lucrative operations shut down, and their legitimate business fronts under constant surveillance by law enforcement, he lacked anything remotely resembling the resources necessary to complete the task. They couldn’t even sell pirated DVDs on a street corner in Chinatown anymore without finding themselves surrounded by a half dozen cops. It wasn’t just the Feds, the Metropolis Police Department was making it perfectly clear that the Triads were not welcome. They’d received no small amount of help from the city’s two resident superheroes. In just the last few months, it seemed like Superman and Ultrawoman had nothing better to do than personally make his life a living hell. They also had more than enough trouble from the damn reporters from the Daily Planet.
Now, instead of surveying his domain from his well appointed office, he was somewhere in suburban New Jersey, at a non-descript hotel off the Turnpike. They’d changed rental cars more than once and had taken a long, circuitous route to nowhere in particular, just to have this conversation. Dragon silently willed the other man to sit still for a moment. The constant movement was distracting him. As much as the theatrical pacing served no purpose, Johnny was right. The young man was a Red Pole – a street leader of the organization. The Triads kept him hungry—never rewarding him too extravagantly for his successes. If he intended to make it in the organization, he couldn’t be seen as being responsible for the failure of the Metropolis operations.
With last week’s heroin shipment being interdicted by the police, they were out of money. The Feds’ noose was tightening around their necks. And his attempts to intimidate the reporters into dropping their investigation had been equally fruitless. Lane and Kent had apparently sent their families out of the city. Without sufficient foot soldiers to search them out, they’d lost their best form of leverage. Attempts to kill the reporters themselves had also borne no results. He wasn’t sure how Superman and Ultrawoman could possibly have time to disrupt all of his operations and keep those two reporters out of danger.
He dragged a finger across the scar that ran down his cheek. It had been a long while since he’d been in a fight. Dragon had people to do that for him these days. Or at least he did, until the police arrested all of them. He now faced the real possibility of a long prison sentence or perhaps much worse from his own superiors if the losses in the Metropolis operations couldn’t be stanched.
********
Clark hovered over the dingy motel, listening intently to the tense conversation between the two gangsters. Just as he’d suspected, their cash flow problem was thoroughly disrupting operations. But it also seemed like they weren’t going to get much higher into the organization than the Dragon. Most of the crimes the FBI had jurisdiction over were linked directly to him. Any additional illegal activity by higher ups was carried out well beyond the water’s edge, which meant the Feds couldn’t prosecute.
But from the nervous way that the Dragon and Johnny were conversing, the Triads would probably cut their losses and quit Metropolis entirely if the Feds cracked down hard. Maybe he and Lois couldn’t destroy the Triad organization outright, but perhaps they could drive them out of Metropolis.
It was a start wasn’t it?
Maybe it wasn’t, though. Maybe they were just playing a giant game of whack-a-mole. They could destroy the gang’s Metropolis operations, but what would stop them from just moving their resources to prey on another city? With a sigh, Clark turned to head back to Metropolis. What he’d learned wouldn’t help the Feds prosecute – Johnny and the Dragon hadn’t said anything they didn’t already know, and the last thing he and Ultrawoman needed was to give the defense lawyers fodder for the argument that he and Lois were just an extension of official law enforcement, making it almost impossible for them to do anything without a warrant. But the conversation had confirmed some of his suspicions. He wanted to talk to Lois about it first, but he expected to recommend to the U.S. Attorney that they go forward with the arrests of the heads of the Metropolis chapter of the Triads.
********
“No, Mommy, I don’t want you to go!” Jon screamed, refusing to release his grip on his mother. His arms were wrapped around her neck and his head buried against her shoulder. She ran a soothing hand up and down his back and swayed gently from side to side.
“Honey, Daddy and I have to go,” Lois said gently. It broke Martha’s heart to watch the scene unfold. And from looking at Clark’s face, she could tell it was breaking his heart, too. She was grateful for the solid, reassuring presence of Jonathan’s arm around her shoulders. He stood silently beside her as they watched their son and daughter-in-law as they said their goodbyes. In the last two weeks, this was just their third visit up to the cabin. They’d only stayed for a few hours each time, knowing that the Triads were trying to keep an eye on them and would notice if they were away from home for too long. Jon started to cry, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Buddy, we’ll see you really soon, okay?” Clark said softly. “Be a good boy for Grandma and Grandpa.”
“I wanna go home!” Jon shouted.
Lois kissed the crown of his hair. “That’s not the way we behave,” she said calmly. “We don’t yell like that. I know you want to go home, but it’ll just be little while longer. We need you to be a good boy, okay?” Jon’s cries subsided into quiet whimpers. “That’s my guy,” Lois said softly. She was finally able to extricate herself from Jon’s grip. Lois set him down gently on his feet.
Clark leaned down to give his son a kiss. “I love you,” he said as he tousled his little boy’s hair. “We’ll see you soon.”
“You said you wouldn’t go away anymore,” Jon pouted. He stepped behind his grandfather, hiding from his parents.
The words seemed to pierce Clark’s heart. Martha could see the pain in his expression. “We’ll see you in a few days,” Clark said. He looked at her, his eyes wounded. Martha hugged her boy. “Bye Mom,” he said softly.
“Bye, son,” she said. “We love you.”
Jonathan put his hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Take care, boy,” he said.
Lois hugged both Martha and Jonathan. “Thank you for taking such good care of him,” she said.
“Honey, you don’t have to thank us,” Martha said.
“We’ll see you soon,” Jonathan added. “Take care.”
********
Perry stood up stiffly from his desk and looked across the bullpen to the side-by-side offices where the lights still burned this late at night. He’d tried to shoo the two of them home earlier, but he knew how Lois felt—when you were used to the happy sounds of a child’s laughter in your home, having it so quiet and still was painful. These days, with no one at all to go home to, he knew how that felt. But Perry imagined it was still even more difficult for them, being so unfathomably powerful and still unable to keep their son safe except by sending him away.
He was getting too old for this sort of stuff. But though his body was no longer as willing to endure long nights, constant stress, and an awful diet, investigative journalism was not just in his blood, it was seared into every cell in his body. Having his two star reporters working together again on a major investigation put a spring back into his step, at least metaphorically speaking. It also meant that he had to make do with his now indispensible right-hand man only undertaking his managing editor role on a part-time basis. Of course, a part-time Clark Kent was worth ten full-time editors, but the new arrangement had brought into stark relief just how much Perry relied on the younger man these days.
Rolling down and re-buttoning his sleeves, Perry grabbed his suit jacket from the coat rack behind his desk and pulled it on before pulling the cord on his desk lamp, bathing the office in darkness. He walked out into the newsroom and crossed the bullpen to Lois and Clark’s offices. As usual, they were both in her office, Clark perched on one corner of her desk. They looked up as he approached.
“I just wanted to say goodnight, you two,” he said.
“Goodnight, Perry,” Lois replied.
“Goodnight, Chief,” Clark said. They both looked absolutely bone-tired to him, laying bare the lie that they were invincible. Though they were physically impervious to harm, they couldn’t keep working at this rate forever.
“Try to get some rest, huh?” he added, wondering if he was wasting his breath.
“We think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” Lois replied with a tired smile.
He nodded, trying not to show too much premature enthusiasm. “You’re doing a damn fine job,” he said. “I’ll see you two in the morning.” With that, he turned and walked back across the bullpen toward the elevator bank.
********
“You seem tired, Clark,” his shrink said sympathetically.
“I haven’t been sleeping much,” he replied as he sat down on the couch.
“Nightmares?” she asked, sitting down in her own chair.
He shook his head with a bemused grin. “Actually, no. I haven’t been sleeping enough to have nightmares. Lois and I have been working on an investigation. It’s been stressful,” he said cautiously, having decided he wouldn’t impart any more information than the good doctor truly needed.
“I’m glad you’ve been able to go back to work, but it won’t help to run yourself into the ground,” she cautioned. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. But it wasn’t as though he’d had a choice.
“I know,” he replied. “And Lois and I both know we can’t keep this pace up indefinitely. But we have to finish this investigation.” Clark sighed, trying to figure out how to explain what he meant. “It’s been tough and frustrating, but in a way, I feel grounded, like I’m doing something really meaningful again.”
“You haven’t felt that way until now?”
“Sort of. I mean, personally, there so much in my life that’s important, more important than I could have ever imagined. But I guess I’ve been feeling like…an imposter. Like I was playing these roles without really knowing what I was doing. I was pretending to be Superman, pretending to be an editor. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. For someone to realize that I don’t belong here.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Most of the time, I’m just overwhelmed by what we’re working on, but there are moments when it’s like I never left. I’m working with Lois the way we used to. I don’t know, maybe that’s the tradeoff. There’s all this extra stress and pressure and I’m not sure I can handle it. But I used to thrive on this stuff.”
He didn’t tell her about the way that being away from Jon was eating away at him and breaking Lois’s heart every day. He didn’t tell her how much he worried about his little boy, or how he actively avoided sleep because he was afraid of having nightmares about Jon getting hurt. Or how he would sneak out in the middle of the night when he should have been patrolling to check in on his son and just watch him sleep for a few, brief minutes.
********
The sound of his heartbeat was like a balm to her troubled soul. She floated high over the cabin, cloaked by the darkness of night, unnoticed in the quiet forest. Lois watched her son sleep, dressed in his Spongebob Squarepants pajamas and tucked securely into bed in the cozy cabin. Her in-laws, too, were soundly sleeping inside. If they were perturbed by the danger that had sent them to this secluded mountain retreat, there were no outward signs of it. When she spoke to them each night, they were always in good spirits and assured her that they were doing well and that Jon was enjoying their adventures in the woods.
It was almost over, she told herself. The Feds were planning to move against the highest ranking members of the Triads they were going to be able to nail. It wasn’t the perfect clean sweep they’d been hoping for, but it would go a long way in stamping out organized crime in Metropolis once again. First it was Lex Luthor, then it was Intergang. Now it was the Triads.
It didn’t seem to matter how hard she or Clark or the police worked to get rid of the mobsters and racketeers, someone always seemed to be waiting in the wings to fill the criminal void in the city. She wasn’t sure what they’d have to do to finally convince the less than savory element of society that Metropolis just wasn’t their town.
With a reluctant sigh, Lois turned back toward home and slowly flew away, taking great care not to create the tell tale sonic boom that might cause people to wonder if either test rockets or superheroes were deployed to the area.
********
“I got it, Johnny!” The voice came across the phone before Johnny could open his eyes. He’d been changing phones every few days. Next to no one had this number. Those who did knew better than to call unless it was important.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he sat up in bed. “You sure it’s real?”
“Dude, I don’t know, it looks real to me.”
“Yeah, well we’ll have to test it,” Johnny mused aloud.
“How?” came the brain dead reply.
“Not now. Give me some time,” Johnny snapped.
“So what do I do with it?”
Johnny rolled his eyes. Every half witted soldier he had was locked up or back in Hong Kong. There was no way the Triad organization could hope to survive with the nothing but the dregs carrying out operations here. “Get it locked up. You know the Feds are all over me.” He hung up quickly, not waiting for a reply. Falling back against the bed, he stared up at his water-stained ceiling.
The bosses in Hong Kong had made the situation eminently clear. They had a problem in the Metropolis operations. Two problems, really. And Hong Kong expected the operation in Metropolis to deal with the problem itself or it would find itself cut out of the Triad’s organization entirely. That would have been a guaranteed death sentence. Johnny sighed and closed his eyes. He needed a plan.
********
Jon looked up at his grandmother from his cookies and milk. “I miss Mommy and Daddy,” he announced, not for the first time.
Martha smiled sadly at him. “I know,” she said. “I miss them, too.”
Her little grandson frowned, his brow furrowed. “I want to go back to school. I want to go home.”
“We’ll go home soon, sweetheart,” Martha said as she gently tousled his hair. Clark and Lois seemed optimistic about finishing the investigation in the next few days, but the end couldn’t come soon enough as far as their little boy was concerned. They spoke to him every night on the phone, reading him stories and tucking him from far away, but he still missed his parents. Martha understood why the kids felt like they needed to keep their distance until the mobsters were off the street, but that didn’t make it any easier for Jon.
“Daddy promised he wouldn’t go away anymore,” Jon pouted. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him swinging his feet anxiously under the table.
“Mommy and Daddy aren’t going anywhere,” Martha promised him. “And our little vacation will be over soon. Now why don’t you help me make dinner for us and your grandpa?”
“Okay, Grandma,” Jon said without any enthusiasm.
********
Lois looked at her husband with a grin before spinning into her suit. He was already dressed as Superman and waiting for her. The Feds were planning to move today against the leaders of the Metropolis Triads who were still walking around freely and the superheroes had offered their help to make sure things went smoothly.
More than anything, Lois wanted to be done with this entire thing so they could get Jon back and get their lives back to normal. They flew out of the library annex and downtown to the federal plaza where David Brewer and his team were waiting for them. It was just before four in the morning, the FBI’s favorite time to conduct an arrest. Their targets were almost always at home, unarmed, and sleeping. Tired, disoriented arrestees generally made for safer missions.
Superman and Ultrawoman touched down in front of the special agent in charge, wearing the distinctive FBI raid jacket. Brewer smiled at them. “I’m riding with the first team to Mayberry Street to pick up the Dragon. Anne’s leading the second team’s raid on Johnny Tai’s place.”
“I’ll follow you,” Superman said.
“You sure you don’t want to ride shotgun?” Brewer joked.
Clark managed a small smile. “I think I’ll be able to find my own way.”
“And I’ll back up Agent Bradley’s team,” Lois said referring to the Brewer’s second in command.
“Sounds like we have a game plan,” Brewer said. “Let’s move, people,” he called out to his team. The agents finished loading into the oversized black SUVs and the two motorcades set out on their way.
The takedown itself was anti-climactic. In the oldest part of Chinatown, the Feds knocked on the door of Johnny Tai’s dingy apartment. He tried to flee down the fire escape. Ultrawoman caught him and frog marched him into the waiting hands of the federal agents.
As Clark Kent jogged over toward the Feds, Lois assumed that his takedown had been just as uneventful. Anne Bradley gave him a few quotes before he turned to interview Ultrawoman. Lois played along for appearance’s sake before excusing herself, claiming she was needed elsewhere.
Soaring high in the sky, she did a barrel roll, immensely relieved to be done with the investigation. The Feds had in custody the highest ranking members of the Triads in the city. The gang’s Metropolis operations had already collapsed and taking down the heads of the local chapter meant that any attempts to resurrect the crime syndicate would take a long time, if it ever happened.
All of that was well and good, but what really interested Lois was the fact that she could finally get her family back together under one roof. Things could go back to normal.
