by R. A. Jones
She hadn’t wanted to flee the island; none of them did. But Fantom had convinced them that such was what Aman wanted. So flee they did.
“Okay,” Ferret said, “so we’ve hightailed it outta Dodge. Now what happens?”
“I suspect that’s what happens,” Fantom replied, pointing back toward the island.
As they watched in dumbfounded amazement, the torch atop the right arm of the Statue of Liberty began to glow with an eerie green aura, illuminating the statue and the air about it. Its metal skin rippled like sheets on a clothesline.
A sound like thunder times ten sent waves of force roaring outward in all directions as a massive explosion reduced the torch to thousands of shards of screaming shrapnel.
Reacting instantly, Ferret grabbed the Witch around the waist, threw her to the floor of the boat and covered her with his own body. Most of the others were also diving for cover, but Iron Skull leaped up on the stern, arms spread in an attempt to shield his comrades. He was blown off his feet like a paper cup in a cyclone and sent hurtling back into the boat.
Deadly darts of metal thunk-ed into the skin of the boat, even as it was being tossed wildly up and down by the suddenly roiling waters.
As the roaring sound diminished and the waves began to calm, Ferret pulled himself up and gazed back at the island. Darkness was again gaining ascendancy, but the light of small fires clearly showed him that the torch, the hand and part of the arm of the statue were completely gone: totally demolished.
“John!” Zona cried, rushing toward the side of the boat.
Fearing she meant to throw herself into the water, Man of War grabbed her and pulled her tightly against him.
“It’s no use,” he said grimly. “No man could have survived a blast of that intensity … not even a man like him.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Iron Skull in his flat, emotionless voice.
He was sitting upright in the forward end of the boat, where the concussion had deposited him. His head turned to see the Witch quickly crawling toward him, her eyes wide with concern.
“You’re bleeding, Rex!” she exclaimed.
He glanced down to look at the juncture where his right arm met his upper body. Several inches of scorched metal were protruding from the spot.
“So I am,” he observed. He gave the Witch the closest his metallic skin would let him come to a smile. “Despite what Ferret thinks, I am still mostly human, after all.”
The Witch reached for the piece of metal but he stopped her by grabbing her hand.
“Probably best to leave it there till we get back to base,” he explained. “But if you’d help me stand --?”
She willingly did as he asked.
“And thank you for calling me by my real name,” he whispered to her before pulling free of her helping hands.
Once upright, internal gyros had quickly restored his balance and he walked confidently toward the bow of the boat. As he did so, his mechanically enhanced eyes began to glow redly. He moved his head slowly from side to side.
“Take us over there,” he said at last, pointing to the starboard side of the boat.
Eager to grasp at any straw, no matter how thin or fragile, Zona leaped to the wheel of the sleek craft. Turning the wheel and moving the throttle back carefully, she slowly brought the boat to the area indicated by Iron Skull.
“I see him!”
The Ferret was excitedly pointing to the form of a man, floating face down in the water. As Zona eased the boat alongside, several sets of hands reached out, pulling the unmoving figure from the deep and up over the side of the vessel.
Once they got Aman safely aboard, Man of War gently turned the man over onto his back. As he did so, a faint glow illuminated both him and the others who had drawn near. Letting out a collective gasp, they pulled back in astonishment.
“Dear God …,” the Witch murmured.
To their utter amazement, they were looking down at the five mystical gems of destruction – all now firmly embedded into the torso of the unconscious Aman!
“John?” Zona sobbed, leaving the wheel to throw herself on her knees beside him. She lovingly guided his head to her lap.
The others turned away respectfully. Moving to the side of the boat, they stared out over the dark waters.
“What about the Great Question?” Iron Skull asked, his glowing eyes still scanning the night. “Could he have survived the explosion, too?”
“I doubt it,” Ferret snorted. “He’s not as tough as our boy.”
“I fear otherwise, friend Ferret,” the Fantom replied. “We underestimate him at our own peril.”
There was nothing that could be said to that, so they resumed staring into the night in silence.
“He’s not breathing.”
The voice coming from behind them was so soft that even the Ferret and Iron Skull barely heard it.
They turned to see Zona Henderson, nearly hysterical, tears streaming down her cheeks. She still clung to Aman, but his head had fallen limply to one side.
“He’s not breathing!!”
CHAPTER XLVII
Berlin, August 31, 1939
Air Marshal Hermann Goering did not want to speak.
He cast his eyes sideways and down at the man walking beside him. Goering knew Chancellor Hitler well enough to know all his many moods. The Fuhrer’s face was almost black with suppressed emotion. The Air Marshal had no wish to release those dark demons, not with himself as the only available target for their rage.
But he could keep his own boiling feelings in check no longer.
“Your generals don’t understand,” he said in clipped tones. “I don’t understand.”
Hitler kept walking, neither responding nor acknowledging in any way that he had heard his subordinate.
“The plans were set,” Goering pressed on. “Our troops are massed on the Polish border, eager to dip their bayonets in blood. The stage is prepared, our justification to the world established.
“Yet at the last hour, you cancel all those carefully laid plans for invasion. Why?”
At that, Hitler stopped and spun to face Goering. The Air Marshal recoiled slightly as he looked into the eyes of the Fuhrer. There was madness there, as always, but they were also alight with sparks of rage and grandiosity.
“I have canceled nothing, Hermann,” Hitler said, his high-pitched voice rising to almost hysterical levels. “Only postponed. Only temporarily.”
He drew himself up to his full height and leaned in closer to the tense Goering.
“And you, Herr Air Marshal,” he continued, his words now carrying icy and threatening weight, “would be wise to never, ever again question either my orders or my reasons for them.”
“Of course, my Fuhrer,” Goering replied fearfully. “I meant no disrespect.”
Hitler continued to stare sharply at him, but made no reply.
“I’ll await your orders,” Goering said at length, bowing slightly and stiffly at the waist, “and bid you good-night.”
The final words were spoken to Hitler’s back, for he had already turned away from Goering. He opened the door leading into his private office, entered and slammed the door shut behind him.
Hitler stood there, fists clenched, his entire body shaking with anger. Moving at last, he fairly raced across the spacious room, throwing himself into the padded chair behind his desk.
He slouched there, brooding like a petulant child. He was just as confused and frustrated by the need to order his armies to stand down as was Goering.
At the same time he felt he had no choice but to do so, since it had been days since he had heard from the secret ally who had helped him in his rise to power and who was his fellow architect in the meticulous plan for the conquest of Europe.
Now he feared for the fate of those well-laid plans, including those he and the mad monk had formulated for the eventual attack on Germany’s supposed allies in the Soviet Union. He despised the Slavs nearly as much as he did the Jews, and
planned a similar fate for both.
The lamp atop his desk, the sole light source in the room at the moment, flared brightly, then faded to but a dim glow.
A harsh crackling sound, like that of electricity being wildly discharged, pulsed in the room, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Instinctively, his hand darted toward the pistol secreted under his desktop.
“There’s no need for that, Chancellor,” a deep voice said.
Hitler gasped as, faintly in the gloom, he only now saw the figure seated in a far corner of the office.
Strange, he thought, as recognition led him to relax. In all their previous meetings, he had never seen the Great Question seated. Yet here he was now, almost slumped in the chair, as if a large weight or serious affliction had sapped his strength.
“I was beginning to fear you were dead,” Hitler said testily.
“I am not so easily killed,” the Question replied.
The hooded monk pushed himself up from the chair and onto his feet. It seemed to take great effort, though, his walk slow and unsteady as he moved closer.
“Now what?” Hitler asked, choosing to ignore his ally’s seeming weakness. “My army is at the ready, my generals are straining at their leashes.”
“Then turn them loose,” the Question growled. More softly he added, “and let slip the dogs of war.”
At the very thought, the Chancellor’s face lit with anticipation and excitement. But he had not thrown all caution to the wind.
“Even though your plan to neutralize America did not succeed?”
“Neither did your first attempt to seize power, as I recall,” the Question said sternly.
Hitler flinched, grimaced. No other man alive would have dared throw in his face the memory of his humiliating “Beer-Hall Putsch” of 1923. His hand almost flew back toward his concealed weapon.
“I’m not finished with the Americans,” the Question continued, daring to turn his back on the murderous Fuhrer, “or with their self-appointed protectors in the Steel Ring. But there is no need to delay our opening gambit.”
He opened the door, paused to look back over his shoulder.
“Poland is ripe for the plucking, Herr Hitler … so pluck it.”
With the sound of muffled laughter coming from beneath his concealing hood, the Question passed through the portal, closing the door firmly behind him.
Only then, hidden from the blazing eyes of the German tyrant, did he allow himself to sag weakly against the wall. Even as he struggled to calm his breathing, his pounding heart, he could feel the blood oozing wetly from a dozen re-opened wounds only partially healed.
He thought of each of them as a nail he intended one day to drive into the coffin in which he would bury his traitorous acolyte Aman.
If the pup was not already dead. After all, he had taken the full brunt of the mystic explosion that had nearly ripped the life from the Question. Regardless, the hooded monk had more immediate concerns.
Pushing himself away from the wall, refusing to either feel or show weakness, he walked slowly but proudly down the shadowed hallway. His private craft was waiting for him at the nearby aerodrome, prepped to speed him to his next destination: Moscow.
Just as he had been encouraging Adolf Hitler to set his future militaristic sights on the Soviet Union, so, too, had the Question been counseling the Russian commissar Josef Stalin to mistrust Hitler and prepare to fight his forces as well. It would not take much to reinforce Stalin’s resolve to conquer not only eastern Europe, but the west as well.
With only a little prompting, the Question thought smugly, the world would soon be engulfed in the purifying flames of war.
Behind him, still seated at his desk, Chancellor Hitler was smiling broadly, his eyes now ablaze with wild expectation. He held not the slightest doubt that soon he would be ruler of all of Europe, including the British Isles and the empire that they commanded.
His gaze narrowed as he glared at the door of his office, the warped mechanisms of his brain whirling feverishly. He felt equally sure that the time would come when the Great Question would betray him and attempt to seize power for himself.
Plans would have to be made for his elimination as well.
But that was for another time. Today was for a more pressing, more glorious course of action. Hitler reached for the receiver of his telephone, prepared to give the order the entire German military machine was eagerly awaiting and was geared to carry out.
The order for war.
CHAPTER XLVIII
September 1, 1939
At dawn, in response to orders from the Fuhrer, the German army, navy and air forces launched a coordinated attack on Poland.
From East Prussia, Silesia and Slovakia, nearly two million Germans advanced along an enormous front. Their plan was simplicity itself: to employ the Blitzkrieg tactics they had perfected in the Spanish Civil War to overwhelm and annihilate the Polish army.
With their way paved by the Luftwaffe’s pinpoint air strikes, armored divisions struck swiftly and decisively.
The Polish army, composed of only 600,000 men, was poorly equipped and poorly prepared.
They did not lack in courage, but the outcome was never in doubt. This “war” would only be measured in weeks, not months or years.
On that first day of the invasion, the British and French dutifully rattled their sabers while expressing their willingness to negotiate yet again with Herr Hitler if he quickly withdrew his forces from Poland’s sovereign territory.
The offer was immediately and disdainfully rejected.
In Rome, the Italian government of Il Duce – Benito Mussolini – declared it would remain neutral during this period.
September 3, 1939
Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany.
September 3, 1939
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speaking in one of his frequent “fireside chats”, announced that the United States of America would also remain neutral in regard to the war in Europe.
September 5, 1939
Acting in accordance with the provisions of the Neutrality Act of 1937, President Roosevelt prohibited the export of arms and munitions to all the belligerent nations in the European conflict.
CHAPTER XLIX
New York City, September 6, 1939
Ferret and the Witch walked boldly together into the front hall of the mayor’s mansion.
Even though they had come here in response to a summons from the Eye, they had fully expected to be turned away at the front gates. Instead, they were immediately ushered in as if they were honored guests.
The Eye was already awaiting them, along with the Fantom, the Clock, Man of War and Iron Skull.
The Ferret’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he realized Man of War was engaged in a lively conversation with the mayor himself. Only when LaGuardia reached up and placed a hand on the hero’s shoulder did Ferret notice the familiar steel ring on the politician’s hand.
He was one of them.
Still, the Ferret thought, given his distrust of authority in general and his feeling that this one in particular represented a threat to the lifestyle he chose to live, it would be best to keep the portly man at a safe distance.
He and the rest of this rather unlikely band had spent the first days after the pitched battle at the Statue of Liberty nursing their various wounds. In addition to the sundry powers they possessed in common, they also discovered a similar ability to mend and heal bodily wounds and injuries with far greater than normal speed and efficiency. All were very nearly returned to normal now.
All but one.
“What’s up, Gramps?” Ferret asked the Eye flippantly. “You got a new death trap you wanna send us into?”
“Not today, child,” the ancient sorcerer replied, smiling tightly as he directed the group into a large drawing room off the front hall.
“Today … we have a special visitor.”
As if on cue, a small cadre of grim-faced, black-suite
d Secret Service agents came marching into the drawing room. They fanned out, scanning all sides for signs of any potential danger. Seeing none, one of their members turned and made a forward motion toward the hallway from which they had emerged.
In response, a final agent came into the drawing room. He was slowly pushing a wheelchair – in which sat Franklin Roosevelt.
“Something’s happened to the President!” Man of War exclaimed, starting to move toward him. He was stopped by the Clock grabbing his arm.
“It’s all right,” the masked man explained softly. “He always needs the chair.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because he’s afflicted with polio.”
“What?”
“He keeps it hidden from the public, for obvious reasons.”
“But not from us?”
“No. He knows we can be trusted.”
With that, Man of War relaxed, even smiling in response to the warm grim creasing the President’s face.
“I apologize for taking so long to come and meet with you in person,” Roosevelt began. “But as I’m sure you can imagine, things have been a bit hectic in Washington lately.”
Several of the heroes chuckled in response.
“Gentlemen,” the President said, “and lady,” smiling and nodding at the Witch, who had come to stand close to him, “your country owes you a great debt of gratitude.
“And I hope from this moment on, each and every one of you does think of this as your country.” He reached out and patted the Witch’s hand. “Regardless of your place of birth.”
She stiffened slightly, “But more than just this country is in danger, Mr. President.”
“Quite right, my dear,” he hastened to acknowledge. “Quite right. And I hope you’ll be able to help them all, God willing.” His paternal smile was replaced by a look of deep sorrow.
