There was nothing on Trask or the warehouse in the next day’s Daily Planet, not that Freeman expected to find anything. The editor of the Planet wasn’t going to print anything he couldn’t verify and SHADO had made sure that nothing had been left in that warehouse. The Inquisitor had a story on UFO conspiracies and cover-ups. As usual, it was long on speculation and short on facts. It would have been funny except that the Inquisitor’s allegations were much closer to the truth than they would ever be allowed to know.
Trask and his people had vanished. Where ever they were, they weren’t using credit cards, or any identification the NSA or the FBI or SHADO knew about. They hadn’t shown up at any of their known hideouts or bases. Freeman could only hope that SHADO or the NSA would find Bureau 39 before they made their next move.
The next several weeks Superman made himself useful, capturing a gang of bank robbers with invisibility suits. Then there was the group of cyborg athletes created by a sports surgeon. That one impressed Jackson – without the use of alien tech, Doctor Sam Lane had managed to create prosthetics that were stronger and faster than the originals. Unfortunately, Lane’s creations merely proved the adage that superior ability breeds superior ambition. The fighters he’d enhanced were little more than murderous brutes.
One thing Freeman had noticed about Metropolis even before Superman made his first appearance – Metropolis attracted crazies. London had its share weirdness, not all of it alien related, but Metropolis had more than its fair share. Cyborgs, children with artificially enhanced intelligence, invisible bandits, serial whatevers who targeted weddings, mad scientists. Of course, Gotham City was no slouch in that area – they had a costumed vigilante with some serious toys squaring off against insane master criminals and serial killers.
It made his old job of simply fighting aliens seem positively pedestrian.
Then, finally, they had a lead on Trask and his people.
“There’s some weird stuff happening in Lowell County, Kansas,” Foster announced, finding Straker and Freeman in Straker’s office. “A supposed full EPA investigation into toxic chemical misuse on a farm owned by a man named Wayne Irig, only the alleged site isn’t on any published lists, no complaints had ever been made against Irig, and the EPA only has one investigator in the area. But get this, Irig found a strange crystal on his property last week and sent it off to the state university to be analyzed. It was nothing they’d ever seen before.”
“And now it’s missing?” Straker asked.
“And bulldozers are tearing up Mister Irig’s farm as we speak.”
Straker nodded his thanks to Foster then turned to Freeman. “Get packed, Alec,” he ordered. “We’re going on a little trip.”
“Who do you want to take with you?” Foster asked.
“A couple people who can pass for FBI, at least once sharpshooter,” Straker said. “Let the local FBI office know that we think the Bureau may be in their backyard and we’ll contact them if we need them.”
“You know they don’t like being left out of the loop,” Foster warned.
“I think they’d like being told it was an NSA matter even less,” Straker responded.
-o-o-o-
They were in route to Kansas City on a SHADAIR jet – although SHADO rarely needed to move equipment across the planet to combat alien threats, they had kept the airline that they’d created for cover. It turned a tidy profit as well as giving them virtually instance access to fast transport.
“You’re convinced it’s Trask causing all the commotion in Smallville?” Freeman asked.
“Aren’t you?” Straker asked. “Beside’s don’t you want to see the annual Smallville Corn Festival?”
“You’re joking, right?”
Straker chuckled and shook his head. “The Corn Queen Pageant, the Husk-Off, the Corn-O-Rama, popcorn, creamed corn, corn-on-the-cob.”
“You sound like a travel brochure,” Freeman complained mildly. Straker’s joking was evidence that the other man was feeling confident that the situation was relatively under control.
“Trask isn’t going to go down easy,” Freeman warned. Straker’s expression turned more solemn.
“I know that,” Straker admitted. “He knows we’ll be coming after him. But we do have an advantage. We know who he’s after and where they will be.”
Freeman lowered his voice to a near whisper. “But if someone is helping Trask, someone who knows these things, what are we supposed to be able to do about it?”
“Well, we have to try,” Straker said. “Sometimes that’s all we’ve got.”
-o-o-o-
Smallville was the quintessential Midwest American town. Train station, grain silos, county courthouse, a town square. The town square featured a band-shell. There was a banner sign strung across the band-shell that read "Smallville Corn Festival." It was a well organized affair, complete with a cute logo that reflected small town charm.
“If Irig's around, somebody here will know about it,” Straker commented. “That's the great thing about a small town.”
“But will they talk to us?” Freeman asked.
“We can always listen around,” Straker said. He nodded his head in the direction of Lane and Kent. They were talking to a woman in a khaki sheriff’s uniform. “Rachel Harris,” Straker murmured.
“I beat Fordman in last year's election just by promising to buy a couple of computers,” the woman, Harris, was saying proudly.
Lane gave her partner a skeptical glare. “Old time's sake?
“Clark took me to his senior prom,” Harris announced with exaggerated cheerfulness. “So, when did you two...?”
Lane broke in with “We haven't! We're on assignment for the Daily Planet. We work together.”
The sheriff didn’t look convinced. “Really? Completely professional, huh?”
Kent broke in before Lane could get started with a rebuttal. “Rach, see, the reason we're here is… do you know where Wayne Irig is?”
Harris shook her head. “Haven't seen him. You know how he keeps to himself.” Her radio squawked. She listened to her earpiece for a moment before starting away from them. “Duty calls,” she announced. “Well, Lois, we'll have to swap Clark stories later.”
“So, Mister Irig is missing?” Freeman murmured.
“I would have expected the local law officers to have been apprised of the situation,” Straker commented.
“She could have been lying about not knowing where Irig is,” Freeman suggested.
“Maybe,” Straker conceded. “Or maybe she’s out of the loop.”
“The EPA field liaison is a Carol Sherman,” Freeman said. “Forty, divorced, no children. Good work record, highly regarded by her superiors. Exactly the kind of person Trask would use as a front.”
“I’ve assigned one of the kiddies to go out to tomorrow and talk to her,” Straker said, referring to the security detail that had come with them to Smallville. Straker didn’t often comment about how young SHADO’s operatives seemed now. Many of them were young enough to his children. But this very serious trio, Madison, Westcott, and Lupinski, seemed even younger than most of the newer operatives. Suddenly Freeman felt far older than his actual age. Field work was something best left for the young.
Not that it would matter in a month. It wasn’t going to be announced until the last possible minute, but astronomers with EPRAD and other agencies had finally confirmed what Straker had told him a month ago – an extinction-level-size meteorite was going to hit the planet Earth unless Superman was able to stop it.
