“You heard him,” Dandridge said. “Put me down. Or the boy and girl are dead.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Captain Anger said, refusing to release his captive. “You see, I don’t accept moral responsibility for your actions. And my aides know it. If your henchmen harm Leila or Johnny”-he tightened his grip-“well, I’ve got my own methods.”
“Then let’s talk.” Dandridge’s voice barely squeaked out of his constricting throat.
Cap’s grip increased. “No-let’s act.”
“My assistant can blow up this entire island at my command. Campbell!”
Campbell’s voice bellowed over the loudspeaker. “My finger’s on the switch! Better let him go!”
Cap’s teeth glinted beneath his grin. His eyes-nearly all pupil in the low light of the operating room-looked like dark, unfathomable pools from which could issue unexpected fury. He held his grip around Dandridge’s throat.
“Then I guess we’ll have to see whose fear of death is greater- and who can deal better with the prospect of eternity.”
Dandridge took a deep, rasping breath and cried, “Do it, Campbell! Code Eighty-Six!”
Something made a chunking sound in the walls. The ventilators hissed.
“Gas!” Cap shouted, releasing Dandridge to reach into his cargo pocket. The other three men did likewise, though Rock withdrew a nothing more than a silicone rubber mouthpiece and some fiber fluff-the microbots had devoured all the metal parts of his pocket-sized gas mask.
“Aw, nuts,” he muttered in perfect American.
Dandridge stayed on the floor where he had fallen, smiling a wild, furious smile of triumph.
“Idiots!” he cried. “Masks won’t do any good against nerve gas!”
Cap slipped his mask on anyway and reached down for the doctor. “Then it can’t be fatal or you wouldn’t be…”
Before his fingers could close around the grinning scientist’s neck, Cap’s vision blurred. Those dark, penetrating eyes grew unfocused, glassy. Dandridge closed his eyes, head lolling to the side on the floor. Cap took a step forward, steadied himself, then turned to gaze at his partners. In the scintillating, kaleidoscopic numbness that enveloped him, he saw them collapse to the floor. Then his own vision blackened under the power of the void, and he felt himself fall into night.
•
He awakened to the sound of drilling.
The room was brightly lit, immaculately clean, and filled with surgical and electronic equipment.
Cap fought the pounding in his head, suppressed the pain using yogic techniques he had learned as a child and practiced all through life, and tried to rise from his supine position.
He lay strapped to an operating table. Testing the restraints, he found them resistant to what strength he had so far regained. He turned his head toward the source of the squealing sound.
Campbell-Dandridge’s weasely assistant, whose thin and frizzy light-brown hair exploded wildly from his head like mold on old bread-worked feverishly with a drill, installing extra shackles for the captives. Sun Ra and Tex already lay bolted to the metal floor with straps; Campbell knelt over Rock, drilling a hole in the thick plating for the manacle on the captive’s left wrist. His other arm and his legs lay pinned to the ground. Campbell had stripped the shirts off all of them. The bulletproof, gadget-laden clothes lay piled in a heap in the corner of the operating room. Their pistols were nowhere in sight.
All three of his crew still dozed in a chemical-induced slumber. Rock snored with loud, snarfling gulps of air and louder whistle-grunt exhalations. Cap craned his head to scan the room. On the far side lay Dandridge on a large cot, head on a soft pillow, sleeping off the nerve gas in relative comfort.
Quietly, Cap flexed his wrists, pulling at the straps’ weak point: the grommetted holes through which half-inch steel bolts passed, fastening the restraints to the table.
Campbell used an electric impact driver to torque down the self-tapping bolt. Rock groggily awoke just as Campbell tightened the last turn.
“Hey!” Rock bellowed. “Shto takoi?”
Campbell dropped the bolt driver with a start and jumped away. When he overcame his surprise, he watched Rock struggle futilely and laughed. It was a nervous, vicious laugh that rattled sharply around the room.
“Go on, tough guy,” Campbell said gleefully. “Be a big brainless tough guy. Tough guys don’t fare well against the guys with the brains.”
“Look at Captain Anger,” Rock growled. “He is tough guy with brains and you won’t fare well against him!”
Campbell smiled. “Have so far.” He padded over to Dandridge to inject an antidote for the nerve gas. Within seconds, the evil genius’s eyes opened and he sat upright, staring at his captives.
“So,” he said woozily, “your little task force is neutralized and my plans can proceed. I believe I have a UN Secretary to reprogram. Campbell?”
His crony glanced smirkingly at the four bound men, then helped Dandridge to his feet. He walked unsteadily toward the exit.
“By the way,” Dandridge said casually, a wicked smile crossing his thin face, “you may be distressed to learn that I’ll be reprogramming the four of you next-starting with you, Captain-then the boy and the woman. You men will make fine worker-drones. The woman…” He let his voice trail off portentously.
•
Leila tugged at the leather straps around her wrists. The umber, two-inch-wide strips bound her tightly to the wall against which she stood upright, arms straight out at the shoulder, forearms bent up to form the universal sign of surrender. Johnny Madsen, fettered in the same way, gazed at her with grave concern.
They stood in a smelly little portion of the cavern that looked like a pirate’s torture chamber. The rock wall behind them dripped a dark ooze that soaked their shirts and pants. The air stank of rotting seaweed and worse. Only the flickering light from a portable fluorescent lamp allowed them to see anything at all.
Their captor had not noticed her earcomm. “Flash,” she muttered sub-audibly. “Can you hear me?”
No answer. She suspected that the mass of the mountain above them blocked her uplink to the satellites the Anger Institute used for global communication.
Leila tilted her head as close to Johnny as she could and whispered. “Keep an eye on the entrance. Let me know if you see anyone coming in.”
“Okay,” he whispered back. “Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Grasping the thick leather thongs that held her wrists to rings embedded in the rock, Leila Weir braced her lower back against the cold, dank cavern wall and slowly-silently-slid off her left boot. Tipping it over, she hit the side of the heel twice with her other boot. Something clicked out of a hidden compartment inside the heel. This she grasped with her left toes (through her sheer nylon stockings) and withdrew from its hiding place.
With a look of strong determination on her face, she raised her long legs up to waist level so that they extended straight out from the wall. She continued raising them with a contortionist’s limber skill until they were above her head.
Johnny saw that she grasped a small, extremely sharp, serrated-edge knife between her big and second toes. Two depressions in its handle allowed for a firm grip that way.
Flexing at the ankle, she sawed at the strap holding her left wrist until the thick leather surrendered. Transferring the knife from toes to hand, she lowered her legs and slashed at the right-hand restraint. Her raven-black hair swayed side-to-side with each of her movements.
Free, she released Johnny and slipped her boot on again. The knife she kept in her left hand.
“Let’s go,” she said a little louder than before.
They crept to the juncture of their small chamber and of the next. Leila moved like a panther, sleek and graceful with lithe power and supple strength. Motioning for Johnny to come to her side, she pointed toward their guard’s positions.
The two guards sat in the boat that had brought them to the island. The shallow inlet to the cave barely provided enough clearance at low tide, which Leila estimated it to be. One guard snoozed while the other read a tattered, dog-eared men’s magazine in the dim light.
She judged the distances, then whispered, “How well can you throw, Johnny?”
Her companion shrugged. “Well enough for left field,” he said.
“Do you think you could take this rock”-she reached into the water and handed him a stone worn round from wave action- “and hit the guy on the right in the head?”
He hefted the rock and performed the instinctive judgment of mass, distance, and angles that come naturally to anyone who has had to deliver a ball to a precise point. Finally, Johnny thought, a use for sports!
Leila picked up another rock, slightly larger, and performed the same preparation. Rising and taking a deep breath of salt-and seaweed-tinged air, she hurled the rock at the sleeping man at the same instant as Johnny aimed for the other. For a long second they watched the black stones arc across the width of the cavern, zeroing in on their targets.
The rustle of their clothing as they pitched the missiles caused the guard to look up from his magazine in time to see the incoming attack. Throwing himself aside, he cried “Caramb-” just as the stone slammed his right shoulder with numbing force. His companion twitched violently when the rock hit him between the eyes with a coconut-like klonk, then slid further down his seat, more unconscious than ever.
Reaching across with his left hand, the other guard struggled to draw his pistol from his right-side holster. Leila crossed thirty feet of sand and rock, leapt up at the waterline, and sailed into him with the speed of a flying tackle. The pistol went off with a report that echoed through the cavern. Startled bats fluttered and flew out with a leathery flap of wings.
“Hate to do this to a fellow lefty,” Leila muttered, “but…” She hammered the side of his head with a double fist, stunning him. Swiftly, she seized the pistol and tossed it to Johnny, who leveled it at the man and took aim with deadly intent.
“Don’t,” she said upon hearing the distinctive click of the semi-auto pistol’s hammer pulling back.
“Why not?” Johnny demanded. “They work for Dandridge.”
Disarming the other guard, she said, “They treated us quite civilly under the circumstances. They deserve a rap on the head for being rough guards, not death.” She nodded toward the boat. “Let’s get out of here.”
They hit the aluminum deck of the boat with resonant thumps, rolling and sliding into position. Leila gunned the engine into life and roared out of the cavern in a spray of sea foam.
“But we don’t know how many people they might have killed!”
“Exactly,” Weir said. “And we don’t know if they’ve ever killed anyone. We’re out to stop Dandridge, not judge everyone who works for him.”
Johnny frowned, puzzled and even a little annoyed. “Well, that’s a hell of a way to fight evil.”
Leila laughed mirthfully. “It works for us.”
The boat smacked over the waves. “All right,” she shouted over the roar of the engine, “Where’d they hide the plane?”
Johnny scanned the flat, blue horizon and saw nothing but the islands behind them and the sea everywhere else. Salt spray stung his face as the sun-low on the horizon-scintillated on the ocean’s surface.
“Flash!” she called out, confident that she had her earcomm signal back. “I’m going around to the other island. Fill me in!”
“I lost everyone’s signals two hours ago. They towed the Seamaster halfway between the two islands. Cap and the rest must still be somewhere inside the southern island. Be on your guard.”
Her long black hair whipped in the wind as she steered around the northern island. To Johnny, she looked like a golden statue of some Grecian goddess come to life. She gazed intently at the waters ahead, guiding the boat with sure strength. The slap of the metal hull against the swells punctuated the growl of the engine like the sound of a giant animal charging its prey.
He watched in wonder as the southern island came into view. It looked like something out of a mad scientist’s maddest nightmare. In the golden light of the late-day sun, it looked at first like the outline of an ordinary island, then like a tortured city skyline. As they grew closer, the shapes resolved into an intricate array of many-sided pillars that thrust out of the ocean at angles that, combined, lanced upward like a hideous sea creature breaking through the surf.
Off to one side floated the Seamaster. Leila steered toward it, one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the stolen pistol. Her index finger lay alongside the trigger guard, safe from accidental firing but ready to react to the slightest sign of danger.
She shouted over her shoulder to Madsen. “I suppose telling you to lie down and stay hidden would be pointless, so just be careful and work on not getting killed!”
“I can shoot, you know!” he hollered back.
“I don’t think you’ll have to!” She cut back on the throttle a thousand yards away from the aircraft. The boat settled down and drifted. “Flash-how many boats are out there?”
“I saw three on the last satellite image I nabbed. That was fifteen minutes ago. Now that you’re here, I’ll see what the plane’s cameras can pick up.”
After a moment, his voice buzzed in her ear. “I still see three. One by the nose, two coming straight toward you.”
Leila saw the rooster-tail spray from the two speedboats closing in on their inflatable. “Can you splash them with the portside missiles?”
“Just wanted your say-so. Already locked in.”
She nodded and said, “Fire away.”
Instantly, two white streaks tipped with fire screamed away from a rotating weapons pod under the Seamaster’s left wing. In less than a second, two explosions flung tons of water into the sky, taking the patrol boats with them. Tiny figures scrambled at air as the force of the blast threw them outward in every direction. One boat whirled in space and landed in one piece while the other disintegrated into shattered planks and engines, falling in pieces to the churning sea below.
Leila winked at Johnny as she gunned the engine into life. “We’ll toss out a life raft for them once we’re in the air.”
Her passenger frowned. “Why not let the sharks have ‘em?”
She grinned. “Cap says it totally annoys your enemies to owe you their lives. Besides”-her voice turned somber-“killing for convenience is a trait of the other side.”
She steered around the aft of the Seamaster, past its high T-tail empennage that towered like a diving whale’s powerful flukes, and said, “Open the gate to the castle, Flash.”
Hundreds of miles away in his electronic cocoon at the Anger Institute, Flash tapped into his keyboard the command to unseal the Seamaster. Encrypted with a 512-character prime number, the message darted upward to a commercial satellite and down again to the Seamaster’s computer, which decrypted the message and activated the gun bay door.
The boat bobbing at the prow of the seaplane released its tow line and roared into action, pulling around at the sight of the missile attack. Three men leveled their weapons toward Leila.
She took aim and squeezed off three rapid shots. Two rounds hit home, dropping the men to the deck. The third kept his cool and fired at the deadly woman.
The bullet punched through the boat’s windshield with a nerve-rattling crack. Leila sucked in a gasp of air and fired again. The pistol barked out a bullet that found its mark in her attacker’s chest. Dropping his rifle, he clutched his heart with one hand, gripped his skipper’s shoulder with the other, and sank out of sight to join his fallen comrades in the bottom of the boat.
“You’re shot!” Johnny cried, staring at the dark crimson stain glistening against the black fabric of her jumpsuit.
She nodded and tucked the pistol in the belt around her waist. “Swim for it!”
With that, she dove into the warm Pacific waters, followed an instant later by her companion. They splashed across the ten yards separating them from the gun bay and climbed aboard, but not before Johnny noticed a pair of threatening dorsal fins.
“Sharks!” he hollered, winding up with a mouthful of saltwater for his trouble. Scrambling for the rising and falling edge of the aircraft hatch, he twisted his head around to see the sharks race toward him with singular intent.
Leila, her blood’s scent luring the creatures, pulled herself into the weapons bay with her left arm, then drew her pistol and aimed behind Johnny.
He extended his hand, scrambling and splashing in his race for safety. Behind him, he felt an impact reverberate through the water, followed by another, then the swirl of churning turbulence. He took Leila’s hand and clambered out of the water, the oily, metallic smell of the Seamaster as welcoming to him as the scent of apple pie and firewood to a weary traveler. Turning about, he glanced at the water outside in time to see a pod of dolphins ramming the sharks with their hard, round noses. The sharks swam away with a few powerful kicks of their tails.
Leila Weir smiled wryly. “See that, Johnny? Captain Anger has friends in the strangest places.”
“You’re still bleeding,” he observed, stepping toward her.
“It’s a clean in-and-out. We’ve got to get in position.” She flipped the switch to seal up the outer hatch and headed for the cockpit. “Flash! What’s Cap up to?”
“Search me,” came the radioed reply.
“Tell me where they landed on the island and I’ll position the plane nearby if they have to make a getaway.”
“All right-head toward the south shore. But stay out of blast range. I don’t think Cap will want to let Dandridge keep his toys.”
“Why aren’t they out yet? We were held captive for quite a while.”
The concern in Flash’s voice carried over the æther. “I don’t want know. All we can do is wait. Cap’s gotten out of worse scrapes.”
Leila stared at the alien landscape of the silver metal island and frowned. She subvocalized-inaudible to Jonathan-“I’m not too sure about that.”