MARVEL's Black Panther--The Junior Novel

by Jim McCann

  And yet.

  “I’m sure he thinks his plan worked,” Ross said. “Can you imagine?”

  “In his own way, he’s a victim,” T’Challa said softly. “How many more in Sokovia are like him? The tragedy that befell Zemo… it could consume anyone.”

  Ross picked up a folder from a desk and shoved it under his arm. “Yeah, well, most people who experience tragedy don’t try to get Iron Man to destroy Captain America.”

  The man has a point, T’Challa thought.

  “Now, is there anything else you can do for us?” Ross asked as he sat down behind a desk. T’Challa stood, looking at the odd man.

  “I… I do not understand,” T’Challa responded, shaking his head. “I have delivered Zemo to you. I should think any obligation, if one existed, has been met.”

  “Obligation? Who’s talking about obligations? I’m talking about… a limited partnership,” Ross replied.

  “A limited partnership,” T’Challa said, drawing out the words. “Speak plainly, Agent Ross. My country has urgent need of me.”

  “Please. ‘Agent Ross’ sounds so formal, I feel like I’m in trouble,” the agent said with a smile. “Call me Everett.”

  “Agent Ross,” T’Challa repeated. He did not smile back. “Please, come to the point.”

  Ross leaned back in his office chair and put his feet up on his desk, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He drew his hands behind his head, locking the fingers together to make a headrest. Then he smiled.

  What kind of a man is this Agent Ross? T’Challa wondered.

  “Before he started this little party,” Ross began, “Zemo had been staying at a boardinghouse nearby. What if I told you we found something in the room Zemo was renting? Something that might cause a whole lot of problems for a whole lot of innocent people?”

  T’Challa leaned forward intently and crossed his arms. Wakanda beckoned him home, but a part of him was terrified of returning to his native land to face a people racked by sadness and an uncertain future, all because of him. If he could prolong his stay overseas by just a little bit and do something good, maybe he could find a bit of peace.

  “Okay, Agent Ross. I am listening.”

  BERLIN, GERMANY. TWENTY MINUTES LATER.

  Everett Ross was not a happy-go-lucky man. While he wore the facade of a glib person, always quick with a quip or a joke, Ross had to admit that, underneath, he was perpetually anxious and concerned: about the state of his agency, the safety of his agents, and the myriad threats to the security of the United States—and the world—that they faced off against every day. He fought hard not to show it, but sometimes it came out.

  “My apologies, Your Highness,” Ross said to T’Challa after he’d met up with the Wakandan prince and after his interrogation of Zemo. “I’m a little on edge. Please, bear with me.”

  Together, they walked down a plain, unmarked hallway.

  “We went over the room Zemo was renting with a fine-tooth comb,” Ross said. “I don’t even know what that is, a fine-tooth comb, but I was assured the team used one. Went over everything.”

  The duo stopped at a plain doorway marked with a simple red bar on the door. Ross walked up to the bar. A glowing line moved from the top of the bar to the bottom, panning Ross’s face.

  “Retina scan,” Ross explained, a hint of pride in his voice.

  The bar then changed from red to green, and the door swung open. Ross turned around to T’Challa with a look that said, Impressive, huh?

  T’Challa did not look impressed. The technology in Wakanda far surpassed the technology of the outside world, on all levels. A door that changed colors and opened itself wasn’t going to move the needle with T’Challa.

  Ross shrugged at T’Challa’s impassive response, and then motioned for him to step inside and followed behind him.

  Jeez, thought Ross. This guy has absolutely no sense of humor.

  Once inside the conference room, T’Challa saw a large monitor at one end. On the screen was a static image of Zemo, a file photo. Next to Zemo’s image was a photograph of the boardinghouse where he had been staying shortly before he set his plan in motion.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Ross began, gesturing for T’Challa to sit. “Zemo. For such a secretive guy, he really liked to write things down. I mean, a lot. He left a handwritten journal behind at the boardinghouse.” Ross waved his hand in front of the monitor, and the image changed, displaying a photograph of a leather-bound book sealed in a plastic evidence bag.

  T’Challa was still standing, listening to Ross, staring at the monitor. He hadn’t said a word.

  “You sure you don’t want to sit down?” Ross asked. “You look uncomfortable. It’s making me uncomfortable. I hate feeling uncomfortable. Please, have a seat.”

  T’Challa slowly took a seat next to Ross. His eyes never left the monitor.

  So serious, Ross thought with a mental roll of his eyes.

  “Okay, so, the journal. Zemo filled the whole book using a code. Given the time, I have no doubt our cryptographers would have been able to crack the code and translate the entire book. Then we would have known the full scope of Zemo’s plans and could have prevented anything else he had in mind.”

  T’Challa cocked his head. “What do you mean, ‘would have been able to crack’? Where is the journal now?”

  Ross clapped his hands together. “Perfect. I knew you’d pick up on it. See, this is why I wanted us to work together.” Ross smiled at T’Challa, who did not return the grin.

  Sheesh, Ross thought. So much for the charm offensive.

  Ross pushed on. “I used past tense to indicate that we don’t currently have the journal in our possession,” he said. He waved his hand in front of the monitor once more. The image of the journal was replaced with a photograph of an unremarkable-looking woman. She appeared to be in her midforties, with straight black hair. She had a mole on her right cheek and a pair of rectangular glasses perched on her nose. “She has it.”

  “Who is she?” T’Challa asked.

  Ross clapped his hands again. “We are gonna get along fine, you and me,” Ross said. “She was a trusted member of our organization, or so we thought. Her name is Charmagne Sund. At least, that’s the name she gave us. Could be real, could be an alias, who knows.”

  “I don’t understand,” T’Challa said, looking at the image on the screen more closely. “How does someone become a member of your organization, and then—”

  “Betray said organization by stealing vital evidence from an ongoing investigation?” Ross added quickly, finishing T’Challa’s sentence. “Excellent question. We’re trying to figure that out. But more important is that she has the book, and she’s gone.”

  “When?”

  “Half hour ago, give or take a few minutes,” Ross said. “Near as we can figure, while I was in there talking with Zemo, Sund was in the evidence room, taking the journal. Security cameras recorded her entering the room, then leaving our facility immediately thereafter.”

  “Why would she want the journal?” T’Challa asked.

  “I was kind of hoping you could find her and ask that very question,” Ross said. He waved his hand over the monitor, and the screen went black.

  Though he was standing in the conference room with Everett Ross, T’Challa found his thoughts drifting to the weighty matters that had occupied his every waking moment of late.

  Fate.

  Vengeance.

  The lives of two men, so different, yet intertwined.

  T’Challa was torn between his heart and his head. In his heart, he knew that he must return home to Wakanda. With his father dead, the tribes needed him. His people needed him. His family… his sister needed him. His mother needed him.

  His mother. Ramonda, the Queen Mother.

  How could he look her in the eyes after what happened?

  How could he tell her that one moment, he had been talking to her beloved husband, and the next, saying good-bye?

  For the f
irst time since the bomb had gone off at the United Nations summit, T’Challa found himself fighting back tears.

  Overcome with emotion, T’Challa thought more about what his father’s death meant to Wakanda. Arrangements had to be made. As next in line to become king, T’Challa would take part in a ceremony at Warrior Falls. It was an ancient ritual, and rituals were incredibly important to the people of Wakanda. This ritual required the presence of the four tribes: the Border Tribe, the Mining Tribe, the Merchant Tribe, and the River Tribe. One challenger from each tribe could contest T’Challa’s right to the throne, and he would have to fight each in turn and emerge victorious; alternatively, they could cede the throne to him, and he would automatically be made king.

  Either way, by battle or by birthright, it seemed the kingship would be his.

  But did he want it?

  His heart was firmly planted in Wakanda. It belonged to his father, his family, his people.

  But his head was another thing entirely.

  T’Challa had seen firsthand what kind of destruction Zemo was capable of committing. He had experienced the chaos caused by a man who had allowed vengeance to take root in his soul and grow unchecked. Zemo’s thirst for vengeance had killed T’Challa’s father. It had killed innocent people.

  What if that man had more chaos to unleash on the world? What if this Charmagne Sund were to somehow use the knowledge from Zemo’s journal to sow such chaos? What if she turned that journal, that knowledge, over to someone with even more sinister intentions? As he had seen, the world was full of such menaces. From Ultron to Baron Strucker, from Klaue to Zemo, there was no shortage of evil.

  Torn between his duty to Wakanda and his sense of responsibility to the larger world around him, T’Challa found himself at a crossroads. What would his father say to him if he were here at this moment? he wondered. T’Challa’s mind began to drift back to the last conversation between father and son.

  At the United Nations, in Vienna.

  Before the bomb.

  VIENNA, AUSTRIA,UNITED NATIONS SUMMIT

  “For a man who disapproves of diplomacy,” T’Chaka said to T’Challa in their native Wakandan tongue, “you’re getting quite good at it.” The older man placed his right hand on his son and smiled warmly.

  It was true. T’Challa wasn’t sure about this move, of opening the doors of Wakanda to the world at large. But he trusted his father more than anything. And if it was something his father believed to be so important, then T’Challa would fight for it.

  T’Challa grinned back. “I’m happy, Father,” he said. “I believe in what we’re doing here. I believe in you.”

  “Thank you,” T’Chaka said. He had wanted Wakanda to step out from behind its veil of secrecy. He believed the world at large had need of Wakanda, and Wakanda of the world around them. T’Chaka would lead them, but he needed his son, T’Challa, to accompany him on the journey.

  Those were the last words T’Challa and his father exchanged.

  “Prince T’Challa? Are you with me?” Ross said, waving a hand in front of T’Challa’s face. “I asked if you would help us.”

  T’Challa snapped back to the present and looked Ross in the eyes. “My father would have wanted me to help you,” T’Challa said in response. “But why me? You have all the agents you could possibly need.”

  “You’re right, I have more agents than I can count. That’s not true, actually; I have eighty-four. But none of them are you. None of them are Black Panther,” Ross said. “And something tells me I’m gonna need Black Panther for this one.”

  The words lingered in T’Challa’s ears for a moment before he said, “Very well. But I have a duty to my people as well.”

  Ross nodded. “Of course, of course. Believe me, this will be quick. All we need you to do is to track down Sund and deliver the journal back to us.”

  “Do we know where she was likely to go?” T’Challa asked.

  Ross splayed out his hands. “Yes and no? She’s still in Berlin. No sign of her at the borders or airports,” he said. “I have a lead that we can follow. That, and I’m going to guess you’re pretty good at tracking things.”

  T’Challa nodded.

  “I am the Black Panther, after all,” he said.

  “Of course you are,” Ross said. “Come on, Black Panther, let’s take a ride.”

  I like driving in Berlin,” Ross said from behind the wheel of a nondescript black sedan. “They drive on the right. It’s just like back home.”

  T’Challa sat in the passenger seat, his Black Panther helmet pulled down over his face. He listened to the sound of traffic coming from outside the sedan. The sun made its presence known through the tinted windows, and T’Challa could tell it was late afternoon.

  Ross looked at his companion, and then returned his eyes to the road. What a pair we make, he thought.

  “Take England,” Ross said as they made their way through the heavy traffic on Unter den Linden. The street cut through the central Mitte district of Berlin and was always busy. Ross honked his horn, and T’Challa noticed that no other drivers were honking theirs. “They drive on the left in England. I get turned around. Every time I drive in England, I get into an accident. I just can’t wrap my brain around it. You’re lucky you’re on a mission with me in Berlin.”

  T’Challa turned and looked out the window, and Ross could tell he was losing him. “What is this ‘lead’ you have?” asked the prince of Wakanda. “Why are we in this car?”

  Ross tilted his head as he looked at the road in front of him. “I’m gonna fill you in on a little secret. All employees of the agency are implanted with microchips so we can track them, should they become lost, get kidnapped—”

  “Or betray the agency,” T’Challa cut in.

  “Exactly. The great thing about these microchips is, none of the people in the agency know they have them.”

  “Then how do you know about them?” T’Challa asked.

  “That,” Ross shot back, “is a really good question. One of the best. And the answer is, because it’s on a need-to-know basis, and I need to know.”

  T’Challa shot Ross a look that said, How can I trust a man like you?

  Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it, Ross thought.

  “I know it sounds bad, but trust me, we do this kind of thing for a reason.”

  “I do not know what to think of you or an agency where privacy can be so easily discarded,” T’Challa said, looking back out the passenger window. “Where is Charmagne Sund now?”

  Ross glanced down at his phone. “According to her microchip, she’s up there,” Ross said, pointing through the windshield. He gestured at a large building with a stone facade.

  Before Ross could say another word, T’Challa spoke. “That is the Berlin State Opera,” he said.

  “See?” Ross said, a jaunty tone in his voice. “You work with me, you also get some culture.”

  T’Challa very nearly cracked a smile just as a hail of bullets shattered the windshield.

  It happened so fast, Ross could hardly keep track of it all.

  First, it was the bullets. They hammered the windshield, causing the safety glass to crack like a spiderweb. The bullets sliced through the vehicle’s armor plating as if it weren’t even there. The armor should have stopped anything short of a tank shell, but Ross didn’t have time to unpack the questions racing through his head.

  Then the tires. The sound of all four tires blowing out filled Ross’s ears. At once, he lost control of the speeding vehicle. The car skidded on the street, slammed into another car, and flipped over.

  Finally, the car. Ross and T’Challa found themselves upside down as the sedan, now turned onto its roof, spun around in a circle as bullets continued to rain down. T’Challa unbuckled himself and, in a flash, unbuckled Ross as well. He grabbed the agent, and then kicked out the driver’s-side door. He shielded Ross with his body, rolling both of them out of harm’s way.

  Or very nearly.

  T’Chal
la winced as he felt a bullet graze his left arm, a blinding flash of red-hot, searing pain coursing through his body. The vibranium bodysuit he wore should have deadened the impact of any normal bullet. This bullet was something else altogether.

  Crouched behind the still-spinning car, Ross caught his bearings. “The bullets are coming from a window. Top floor, State Opera,” he called out.

  “Stay down,” T’Challa instructed as he tenderly pressed his left arm, assessing the damage.

  Blood.

  “Take this!” Ross shouted, and threw a small tube-shaped device to T’Challa. “Comm link!”

  Without saying another word or pausing to think about his bleeding arm, T’Challa was gone. He leaped over the wrecked car and darted across the street toward the State Opera. His legs pumped, faster and faster, as he built up speed. Then, with an incredible leap that defied belief, the Black Panther threw himself into the air, clung to the side of the stone building, and began to claw his way upward.

  T’Challa wanted to believe that his father was right. That Wakanda should assume its rightful place in the world and join the international community. T’Chaka felt strongly about that. He felt so strongly, in fact, that he died for his beliefs.

  T’Challa wanted to believe that his father was right, but he wasn’t sure.

  He hated himself for that.

  All this and more raced through T’Challa’s mind as he scurried up the stone facade of the Berlin State Opera. Razor-sharp claws forged from vibranium dug into the stonework, while muscles honed through years of intense training did the rest. It appeared effortless.

  Black Panther reached the top floor in seconds and was at the window from which the shots were fired. In a fluid motion, he dragged the claws of his right hand across the glass of a closed window, and then pushed inward. The glass fell in, and T’Challa flung himself through the now-open window. He tucked into a roll, and as he came out of it, he stuck his feet to the ground and stopped in a crouched position.