MARVEL's Black Panther--The Junior Novel

by Jim McCann

  “I am prepared to bring in Klaue no matter what it takes,” T’Challa stated.

  “That makes two of us. But if the catsuit makes another appearance, I may have to bring you both in. Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret,” Ross countered.

  “Cross me and you will regret it, Ross.” T’Challa stared the man down.

  “We’re not gonna play rock, paper, panther for custody of Klaue, so tell your two lovely bodyguards they should stand down as well.” Ross smiled at T’Challa’s look of surprise. “Yeah, I made your crew, too.”

  T’Challa crossed his arms. “Do not make an enemy of me this night, Ross. Klaue is the worst threat Wakanda has ever faced. I have the chance to end that, tonight. I’m not letting him get away.”

  Nakia’s voice came through T’Challa’s earpiece. “Can you two call a truce or something? You’re starting to attract attention.”

  “The United States government has heard you and respectfully declines, King T’Challa.” Ross flashed T’Challa a forced grin. “But I don’t think you’re going to let that stop you, so—may the best man win.”

  In the meantime, outside the casino, four heavily armored black SUVs pulled up to the door. Ulysses Klaue and eight men in his security detail exited the vehicles. They walked past the Korean bodyguard and entered the building.

  The sudden entrance of such a large entourage quickly grabbed Okoye’s attention as Klaue and his men sauntered through and took their positions in the casino.

  “Klaue plus eight,” she said into her comm, and swiftly made her way up to the balcony from the ground floor. The higher ground enabled her to track more of the men simultaneously.

  “He’s here. Scat,” Ross said to T’Challa.

  “We’re evenly matched if we team up against him,” T’Challa countered.

  “You’re not getting him that easily. My boys can handle him. Now go, before you blow the entire operation.”

  Ross quickly settled himself at a nearby poker table and looked around. T’Challa had vanished. Ross was impressed and, if he was being honest, mildly surprised.

  “Do you have eyes on the vibranium, Okoye?” T’Challa asked as he made his way to a craps table within sight of Ross.

  “Negative, Your Highness. But his men are fanning out across the casino,” she answered.

  “Yeah, and heavily armed. They’re not even bothering to conceal their guns. I thought this was a no-weapons-allowed establishment,” Nakia remarked.

  Okoye patted the short spear strapped to her thigh. “They’re not the only ones armed.”

  T’Challa reached for his necklace. “Indeed.”

  Across the floor, Klaue took a seat next to Agent Ross at the poker table. “Quite the posse. Got a new album dropping soon?” Ross quipped.

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to get you a copy. Throw it in free with today’s purchase,” Klaue answered without missing a beat. “You have the diamonds?”

  Ross pulled out his briefcase. “As per our agreement.”

  Klaue reached into his jacket, pulled out a brown paper bag, and set it on the table. The word fragile was written on it in black marker. “I looked everywhere but couldn’t find a gift shop with the right wrapping paper that said rare priceless metal inside. Hope this’ll do.”

  “As long as it’s got what you promised. But it’s the thought that counts,” Ross replied.

  “T’Challa . . .” Nakia’s voice was tense.

  “I see it.” T’Challa moved closer to the table.

  Okoye radioed in: “I do not advise engaging. There are too many guns in this cramped space. I say we take our chances with the CIA and catch up to Klaue’s men outside.”

  T’Challa shook his head. “No. We risk losing both if we act after Klaue has handed over the vibranium.”

  “So what’s your play, party crasher?” Nakia asked. They were running out of time.

  Okoye stepped aside as one of Klaue’s men elbowed past her. She ducked her head but could tell she had been made. The man stopped and turned, following her and motioning to one of his associates, who moved to corner the warrior woman.

  “We may have run out of options, I’m afraid,” Okoye warned.

  As if on cue, the bodyguard tailing her radioed into his own mic. “Wakandans. They’re here!”

  “At least I can finally lose this,” Okoye muttered as she whipped off her wig and pulled out her spear. In one quick movement, she ducked a punch the large bodyguard threw and, using his momentum, propelled him over the railing of the balcony.

  The man flew through the air and crashed down onto the table next to Klaue and Agent Ross.

  “Tsk-tsk. You broke the rules.” Klaue wagged his finger at Ross. “No outsiders.”

  “Oh, trust me, they aren’t with us,” Ross answered.

  A roar came from across the way. “Klaue!” T’Challa thundered as he began to make his way through the now-panicked crowd toward Klaue and the vibranium hammer.

  “Joy. They sent their king. Sorry about your dad. Hope Wakanda has another king ready to take your place,” Klaue called to T’Challa as he pocketed the brown paper bag. Turning to Ross, he looked at the man admonishingly. “PS, deal’s off.”

  T’Challa flipped and dodged his way up and over tables, racing to reach Klaue, but the man took off before T’Challa could get to him. Ross looked furious.

  “I warned you about turning this mission sideways,” he fumed.

  T’Challa answered by shoving the man to the ground just as Klaue turned back and opened fire at the pair. The Wakandan king ducked for cover.

  Ross looked at the chaos that had erupted on the floor and in the balconies. Apparently, his men had also been made by Klaue’s guards and were engaged in combat. “This is all your fault, you realize,” Ross scolded T’Challa.

  “The fiend shall not escape,” T’Challa replied, seeing Nakia and Okoye each fighting Klaue’s men as well. Klaue stood in the middle of the mass hysteria surrounding him, smiling. He was actually enjoying this.

  Raising his arms, Klaue bellowed to his men, “Light it up!”

  T’Challa grabbed Ross and threw him behind the poker table before tipping it over and using it as a shield between the two men and Klaue at just the right moment. Klaue turned and opened fire, the bullets pinging off the table.

  “I can’t get a shot from here,” yelled Ross, his own gun now drawn.

  T’Challa glanced around the room. Gunfire sprayed everywhere as innocent bystanders searched for cover or ran for the door. He knew Ross was right: They were outgunned and trapped.

  Even worse, it seemed as though Klaue would slip through his fingers as Klaue had once slipped through T’Chaka’s.

  Man down! Man down!”

  The voice of the CIA operative came crackling through Ross’s comm. Klaue’s bodyguards were overwhelming his men, knocking them out, and tossing them aside.

  “I’m almost out of backup. How’s your team?” Ross asked T’Challa, both still pinned behind the poker table as Klaue continued to fire at them.

  Looking above, T’Challa saw his two most trusted comrades honoring their reputations, valiantly holding their own against Klaue’s men.

  “They should make up for your losses,” he said reassuringly.

  Above, Nakia engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of Klaue’s men. She radioed in to Okoye and T’Challa. “Can we wrap this party before any innocents get injured?”

  “Doing my best,” Okoye answered, hitting a thug in the leg with her spear and then delivering a knockout blow to his face. “Need a hand?”

  “I think the king might,” Nakia answered, looking down to see T’Challa trapped.

  T’Challa signaled them off. “You two handle the guards. Leave Klaue to me.” He turned to Ross. “When I say go, roll away from this table and try to take out some of Klaue’s men.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ross asked.

  T’Challa, sensing his opening, answered by shoving Ross to the side and y
elling, “Go!” As Agent Ross rolled sideways, T’Challa leaped high into the air, over the table, lunging in Klaue’s direction.

  Klaue fired at and missed the soaring Wakandan king, who suddenly landed in front of him. He pointed his weapon directly at T’Challa, mere feet from him now.

  “They make kings bulletproof now?” He sneered. Klaue pulled the trigger… and nothing happened. He was out of ammunition.

  “You would be needing bullets to find that out, thief.” T’Challa took a step toward Klaue and knocked the gun out of the villain’s hand with a swipe.

  Klaue smiled. “Hands up?”

  “If you wish to make this easier, yes,” T’Challa snarled.

  “Oh, you misunderstand,” Klaue replied. “I meant you.”

  Klaue’s prosthetic hand began to transform in front of T’Challa’s eyes into a weapon resembling a large gun.

  “Let’s see if you go boom like Daddy,” Klaue said, an evil look in his eye as the sonic disruptor his hand had become began to buzz, priming to fire.

  T’Challa barely flipped back behind the poker table to safety when Klaue’s sonic disruptor let out a loud noise as it fired in his direction. The blast tore through the table and knocked T’Challa into the dealer’s area, dazed and trapped under debris. His eyes fluttered shut as money went flying everywhere.

  “Look at that! I made it rain,” Klaue crowed. He turned and signaled to his four remaining men. They ran for the door, the bodyguards firing behind them for cover.

  Nakia and Okoye saw their prone king buried under piles of wood and brass. Agent Ross was already making his way to T’Challa and motioned for the women to follow Klaue.

  “I have T’Challa—don’t let Klaue escape!” Ross bellowed.

  The two women ran for the exit Klaue and his men had just fled through. They ran down the corridor, the sound of gunfire ahead and then people screaming. As they reached the door to the alley, they saw four SUVs take off into the depths of the fish market.

  As Okoye and Nakia raced to their car, Nakia threw a remote Kimoyo bead onto the hood of the car behind them before sliding into the driver’s seat. “All yours, Shuri!” she called into her comm as she and Okoye sped away.

  “I’m ready.” Shuri’s voice was steel in Nakia’s ear as she stood at attention in front of the black sand table back in the lab. “I also have eyes on the four vehicles that just left your location. I’ll send visual to your screen in the car.”

  Inside the casino, Agent Ross struggled to lift a heavy brass bar off T’Challa. Suddenly, the Wakandan king’s eyes snapped open.

  “Glad you’re still with us. I don’t think Wakanda’s ready to bury two kings in the span of a couple weeks,” Ross said.

  “Klaue?” T’Challa asked a bit groggily.

  “Your lady friends are in pursuit. Right now, we need to get this off you and see if there’s any—”

  Ross was cut off by the sound of T’Challa’s grunt, followed by a powerful shove that sent the brass beam flying off the king.

  “—damage,” Ross finished lamely.

  T’Challa leaped to his feet, fully recharged. “Klaue will not slip through my grasp again. I swear it on my father’s soul.” The Wakandan king began to tear off his tattered suit jacket as he made his way to the casino exit.

  Meanwhile, Nakia and Okoye were in hot pursuit of the speeding SUVs. “You can’t grab any footage to see which one of these Klaue got into, can you, Shuri?” Okoye asked, navigating as Nakia drove, careening around the tight curves of the narrow South Korean streets.

  “Nope. Sorry. Underground, illegal casinos don’t like having too many cameras for people like me to tap into the feeds,” Shuri answered from her lab.

  “Looks like we take them out one at a time and hope we get lucky,” Nakia said, accelerating even more.

  “What of King T’Challa?” Okoye asked.

  Nakia smiled. “I am fairly certain he will be joining us soon. I only hope Busan is ready for their first glimpse of a costumed warrior in action.”

  Black Panther knew he needed to move fast. He raced outside, now fully costumed and ready for action.

  “Second car on your right,” came a voice in his ear. It was Shuri. Inside her lab, the table transformed again into a holographic image of the car and its surroundings. “Hop on and let me take the wheel.”

  The car immediately started, the engine revving. Black Panther flipped onto the hood, quickly securing his footing on the car, which sped off in the direction of the fleeing SUVs.

  “I’m clearing all the lights in the area so you have greens the entire way,” Shuri said, keying code into her tablet with one hand as she “drove” Black Panther’s car with the other via swift hand gestures over the holographic image on her table. “You should catch up with Nakia and Okoye in a few moments.”

  “Find me Klaue,” Panther growled.

  “Working on it, trust me. Can’t you be impressed for one second?” Shuri was beginning to feel the stress as she snapped at her brother.

  In their car, Nakia and Okoye gained on the SUVs, which wove in and out of traffic and among one another. “It’s like they’re playing a shell game,” Nakia said.

  “They’re trying to confuse us in case we figure out which one holds Klaue and the vibranium,” Okoye answered.

  “Uh-oh,” Nakia warned. “Incoming.”

  One of the drivers had rolled down his window and fired a machine gun back at the women’s car. The bullets bounced off the car’s exterior, doing no damage.

  The driver of the offending SUV turned to the man in the passenger’s seat: Klaue. “Their car must be vibranium-laced. We’re not gonna shake them by shooting at it.”

  “Just keep driving to the pickup zone,” Klaue ordered. He grabbed a radio and spoke into it. “Limbani, we’re ten minutes from the location. What’s your status?”

  In his helicopter above a beach, Limbani radioed back. “Off the coast in Haeundae. Set to rendezvous at the bridge.”

  The Haeundae district of Busan was known for its hilly streets that made their way to the beautiful beach. It was one of Busan’s wealthiest neighborhoods and a popular place for tourists to go and view the full moon. Klaue hoped that, between the hills and the tourists, he could shake the women tailing him.

  As the vehicles entered the Haeundae district, Nakia managed to gain on the SUV, firing at them. Okoye rolled down the window and leaned out, spear in hand.

  “A little closer!” she called out to Nakia.

  “Don’t forget, you aren’t made of vibranium. Watch out for that gunman!” Nakia swerved to the other side of the vehicle so they were no longer in the driver’s line of fire. She floored the gas pedal and inched closer.

  “Almost… almost,” Okoye muttered under her breath. “There.” With a heave, she threw her spear at the back tires of the SUV. It hit the axis and cracked it, flipping the SUV end over end.

  Nakia spun the car around and brought it to a halt next to the SUV, which was on its side. Okoye leaped on top, looked inside, and then let out a groan of frustration. “Just the driver, out cold. No Klaue.”

  “Next one, then! Back in, they’re getting away,” Nakia called out.

  Suddenly, the two women saw a car speed by. They were surprised to see Black Panther “surfing” on the hood and no one in the driver’s seat.

  “He sure knows how to make an entrance,” Nakia said. Okoye rolled her eyes.

  Black Panther sped up to one of the SUVs as the vehicles made their way through the hilly streets of the Haeundae district. The driver of the SUV leaned out and opened fire on the rapidly approaching Black Panther car.

  “Your suit, big bro. I’m getting high kinetic readings as the bullets hit you,” Shuri noted from her lab, looking at her tablet.

  “Just get me closer,” Black Panther said in response.

  “You could at least admit this suit’s a lot better than your old helmet-head,” Shuri muttered to herself as she remotely accelerated T’Challa’s sport
s car.

  The vehicle inched up until it was alongside the SUV. When the driver was within arm’s reach, Panther extended the claws built into his gloves and swiftly sliced the gun into pieces. He peered inside the car.

  “No sign of Klaue,” Black Panther said.

  “Let’s take a peek at fleeing car number three, then,” Shuri said. Using her tablet, she pushed the sports car to its max speed and steered it toward the neighboring SUV speeding alongside. The car revved but came up just short of reaching the passenger side. “You’re going as fast as I can get it,” she informed her brother.

  “Then I’ll have to make a leap for it.” Black Panther angled toward the SUV. His car was close enough to the other that he was certain he could make the jump. With a grunt, he launched himself into the air and landed on the side of the SUV. Black Panther scaled his way across the vehicle until he reached the passenger-side window and looked in. Klaue was not in this one, either.

  “Rule this one out as well,” Black Panther growled into his comm.

  “Nakia, Okoye—that means you’ve got Klaue right in front of you,” Shuri reported to the two women.

  Nakia floored her car. “On it!”

  Black Panther’s suit glowed blue as he clung to the side of the SUV. The driver swerved to try to shake him, but he held fast. Looking behind him, he saw that the driver who had been shooting at him was speeding up, trying to ram into Black Panther’s car. Recalling what Shuri had said about the kinetic buildup in his suit, T’Challa had an idea.

  Black Panther leaped off the side of the SUV and back onto his car. “Bring me as close as possible,” he instructed Shuri. The genius princess remotely piloted the car to within mere inches of the SUV Panther had just jumped from. “Hard right on my signal, sister,” he told her.

  “What signal?” Shuri asked, unsure of what her brother was planning. She didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

  Black Panther raised a fist and punched the side of the SUV. There was a loud BANG and a massive spark as the kinetic energy stored in his suit was transferred to the side of the SUV where he had struck it. As Black Panther’s car peeled off to the right, T’Challa gave a slight smile. The SUV careened out of control and slammed into its companion’s approaching vehicle.