The Phantom - 4. Chapter 4

They started in the heart of downtown, at the scene of their most recent run-in with the Phantom and his pranks. Mark wore his usual suit and tie, Gerry more casual, and approached the owner to inquire about a follow-up interview. The man agreed happily, and Mark couched his questions carefully, insinuating what they were really after (any unusual computer glitches or accounting errors since the heist?) with more mundane questions such as 'How has the robbery affected business?'

Gerry taped the interview and, having gained nothing of any real value, they moved on to the next stop on their list. The station, like the locations they visited, believed the two newsmen to be conducting research for their new feature, supers and their impact on the community after the initial media blitz. It was a working title. Neither Gerry nor Mark particularly cared what it was called, but it was the best cover they could come up with at the butt-crack of dawn on a sleepless, anxiety-driven night.

They moved down their list in semi-chronological order. Mark had mapped each location and they worked their way to each one in an outwardly-expanding spiral. The harbor, industrial train yard, airport, and amusement park were on the outer edges of the spiral, the last on the list. They were also likely to be the hardest to talk their way into.

Going to each place and doing interviews was long, gruelling work. Going bleary-eyed in exhaustion, Gerry directed Mark to an incorrect exit off the highway on the road between airport and amusement park. The wrong turn ensnared them in the evening's rush-hour traffic and Mark berated his navigator for the slip. Gerry responded in kind and the verbal torrent quickly overflowed the van's confines until a chilly silence descended over all.

Being downtown, Mark parked at the plaza and they walked towards City Place and the sparkling nightlife. They had plenty of restaurants to choose from, but they didn't get that far.

Gerry's phone buzzed, signalling a message. He stared at the screen, mind screaming with triumph and relief, seconds behind his eyes in comprehending the words.

<I'm sorry> the text read. That faded away to be replaced by <This message will self-destruct in three ... two ... one>

"Huh ...? Ow! Sonuva --" He blew on his scorched fingers, prodding the blackberry with his other hand, crouching down to give the device a puzzled stare, torn between delight and concern. The Phantom was alive!

He was still contemplating the ramifications when Mark pulled him to his feet. He wasn't sure at first why they were running, but he trusted Mark implicitly, following doggedly in his footsteps. He lost sight of the reporter while trying to cross the street to the park. Gerry worked out, but he wasn't a sprinter, preferring a distance-covering jog to speed. His larger body was also not as agile as the smaller man. Mark dodged around the slow-moving vehicles like a salmon swimming upstream. Gerry felt more like a lumbering bear, drawing screeching tires and honking horns at every turn.

He got off the main road, looping back onto the sidewalk at a cross street. Hailing a cab, he slumped onto the back seat with a sigh of relief. Opening his eyes to speak his destination, Gerry almost swallowed his tongue.

He stared straight into the muzzle of a handgun close enough to make his eyes cross. The masked person in the front seat holding the weapon barked out something Gerry was too damn shocked and freaked to immediately make sense of. Everything he'd ever been told about hostage situations went straight out of his head. He twisted, shouting, and jerked the gun and hand to one side.

He didn't hear the gut-flinching cracking sound, nor did he wait for the startled scream, but propelled himself to the far side of the cab, tumbling out the door. He hit hard on his shoulder and arm, skinning his palm, and rolled. He didn't stop running until his sides both ached and he was stumbling, light-headed, for the ache in his burning lungs.

As he walked, panting as he caught his breath, Gerry looked around. He wasn't sure where he was, other than in an alley that smelled like burgers, booze, and stale cigarettes.

Think. Think! he told himself furiously. The Phantom had tried to warn him, Gerry was sure of that, but he didn't know what to make of the rest. Was the Phantom helping the men in gray? How else could they have been found so easily, the ambush set up so perfectly?

But, then, why warn him at all?

This must mean they were on the right trail. Gerry wracked his brains for the hidden clues, but could think of nothing in any of the places they'd visited that day. Where had they slipped up? How had the goons become alerted to their presence? Had they wanted to actually kill him, back in the cab, or merely scare the ever-living crap out of him? If the latter, well, they were most certainly regretting it now. If the former ... he still felt lucky to be alive, either way. All this espionage and spy-stuff was harder than it looked!

It must have been at the airport, he decided after a few minutes of ponderous walking. Security was tight, as always, and they'd gone through three check points before getting to the comptroller's office. He and Mark had both signed in and stated their purpose, but their cover was perfectly innocuous. Or had their questions inadvertently tipped them off?

Gerry sighed. Conspiracy theories were not really his thing. He left that up to the real journalists. Gerry just carried a big camera.

There was still the Villain's Lair and the harbor to check out. If nothing could be found at either location, then logic reasoned the criminals had to be working out of the airport. Or, more troubling, from within the World Bank itself. There were many places to stash a body at an airport, he reasoned, but just where or how did one conduct sneaky, criminal activities there?

He was closer to the Lair than the harbor, so Gerry decided to go there first. It had been the next place on the list, after all. He could only hope that Mark had gotten away and would meet him there.

The Villain's Lair was a mish-mash of a mad scientist's laboratory, medieval castle, carnival freak show, and exploratorium. The place completely filled two city blocks, plus parking, gift shops, and restaurants. Mark hadn't wanted to add the Lair to the list since he still harbored a grudge against the owners for being thrown out.

Gerry disagreed. He'd rightly guessed that the Phantom had first appeared directly after that ill-fated tour, while they were filming an entire busload of people suspended over the harbor by one of the giant cranes used to hoist cargo. He'd played the tape in the van on the way back, making the standard back-up copy, and had seen nothing wrong with it. What they hadn't known was that the image displayed to anchors and subscribers was of the bus apparently hovering in mid-air.

The anchors had commented several times on Mark's stoicism and, while puzzled, he'd shrugged it off as their doubts on his abilities. He was a rookie, after all. In front of the cameras, at least. He'd been a journalist for several years, doing the fieldwork that became the articles read by the anchors or the foot work the other field reporters were too busy for.

When they saw the replay of the news, being trashed by the other stations, they hadn't known what to think, showing their bosses the unaltered tape. It had been a messy, sticky situation they'd tumbled down a second time a few weeks later.

Gerry had grabbed all their tapes starting from the date of the Lair's grand opening, although they didn't have a tape for that because their footage had been confiscated. But after watching hours and hours of clips, he still couldn't get the Lair out of his mind, so he'd pressed the matter until Mark agreed.

Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, there were still cars in the lot. The main building stood apart with no real way to sneak in closer except as a paying customer. Gerry gambled and walked boldy towards the entrance. He paid for his ticket and walked past the small group being formed by a very tired and crabby-looking college student. There were five others in the group, all teenagers, and Gerry could sympathize with their guide. The girls' incessant giggling had him half-mad before he was even to the far side of the 'Are you Madd Enough?' tour round-up area.

The guide's name was Andrew and he looked like an escapee from the set of 'Young Frankenstein.' He wore a long, white, button-up lab coat with his name tag and microphone, large, WWI-era goggles perched in his platinum blonde hair, and oversized, purple rubber gloves. Gerry repressed a snicker.

The first step on the tour was into the Lair's foyer, where the guide would show a small movie mock-documentary about the Lair's 'master,' Doctor Evil. Gerry remembered the cutsie horror flick and passed it by. There was actual research going on in the Lair's actual labs, discussed in the free pamphlets and other paraphenelia at the entrance and in the gift shop. He clutched a few of them in his hand and made for the basement area.

Thick, plexiglass windows separated guests from the lab, technicians, and equipment. One area had an intercom for demonstrations and questions, another had gloves guests could put on to manipulate items with the robotic arms, and there were displays and small movies set up in stages to describe the ongoing work. One section in the vast lab was set aside for palentology, with information about the dinosaur bones being worked on. A life-sized T-rex footprint and a plaster replica of a T-rex skull were the main display pieces. The jaw of the skull was open so that folks could get pictures with their heads inside the mouth.

Gerry walked past the small greenhouse and its mini-rainforest, the chemical lab with its displays on toxic spills, the cut-out of a jet-engine and wind-tunnel with its model, and everything else, peering past all that at the empty lab and actual work stations beyond. There were scientists who worked in this fishbowl, but Gerry was more interested in the offices and labs not visible to the public. Their tour guide had proclaimed importantly that the displays were designed to be shown on a rotating basis, so Gerry knew there was more to the lab than there seemed.

Children's giggles and parents' harassed or pleasant-sounding scolding echoed in the lab and Gerry was not the first to walk through quickly. He found the staff door he remembered, striding up to it and trying the handle. The door opened and he stepped inside.

Dark-gray fabric-covered cubicle walls blocked off the doorway, where sat an unmanned desk with two clipboards resting on the counter. Gerry glanced at them quickly, and then walked past. He curled his sweaty hands into fists, then rubbed his palms on his jeans. The lab felt ominous, deserted, but still well-illuminated. Two-way glass separated him from the public lab and there were closed doors to offices on the other side of the hall he walked along. He didn't recognize any of the names, but wasn't too surprised. The doors, unfortunately, were locked, all but the last, which opened into a dark room.

The computer fickered to life as he closed the door carefully behind him. The glow of the screen was almost blinding and he squinted.

<BRUCE!> The words flickered, speeding across the screen almost faster than he could follow. <What RU doing here? They're looking 4U!>

He almost fell into the desk chair in shock. <Phantom?> he typed quickly.

<Yes! I > The cursor blinked rapidly, but no more type appeared for several seconds. Gerry glanced behind him, sweat trickling down his back as he worried that someone might burst in at any moment.

<Bruce!> the Phantom was back. <They've got Sheila!>

"'Sheila?'" Gerry whispered. He grinned. He could tease Mark forever about that nick-name.

<How did U get here? WHY RU you here? U need to go! Run! Get away from here before it's too late>

<U sent me an SOS> he typed in response, frowning. <What's this about Mark?> He thumped the desk with a fist in irritation when there was no immediate answer.

<SHHHH!> the computer snapped. It was funny how the Phantom's irritation came across to Gerry just through words on a screen. <I'm busy, U know>

<No, I don't! Why don't U tell me?> The computer made a funny, grinding noise and Gerry shot to his feet, gasping as his adrenaline switched to overdrive. When nothing occurred, he glanced cautiously back at the screen.

<Take it!> the Phantom had written. <Follow the white rabbit>

"What?" Gerry murmured. "Follow the what?" If a man in a black suit and tie and sunglasses came through that door, Gerry thought he might pass out. He stared quizzically back at the screen.

<Take it & GO!>

An icon flashed in the bottom right-hand side of the screen, a little, green arrow, indicating that a memory device was safe to be removed. Looking down, he squatted by the CPU and pulled out the flash drive. It still felt warm.

<GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!> The words flashed over and over again, filling the screen.

Gerry stumbled back to his feet, opening the door and almost embarassing himself with a curdling screem at the robotic beep that greeted him. A boxy, robotic rabit, similar to the hares used at dog racing tracks but only about the size of Gerry's shoe, swivelled around in a circle as Gerry watched. Beeping again, it took off down the corridor.

"Follow the white rabbit," he muttered, swearing under his breath. "Right." Shoving the memory stick in his pocket, Gerry struck out after the robot.

Mark sat hunched over a crate in the walk-in refrigerator behind the Lair's main restaurant, arms handcuffed behind his back, and glared at the Grey Matter agents. There were three, all glaring darkly back at him. One had his arm in a sling, leaning against a rack in the chilly room. He seemed to be in charge; at least, the others listened when he spoke, at any rate.

They'd picked him up at the airport, security on him faster than he could swear, surrounding him and bearing him away to await the arrival of the three grey bastards. He'd cooperated at first, until he realized what was intended, and the cops had handcuffed him when he tried to run.

They didn't seem to care what Mark overheard, which took a considerable edge off his sneering bravado, only gagging him to keep him from insulting them further. Although he couldn't see behind the masks, and the voice modifiers kept him from recognizing their voices, Mark listened to keep himself thinking and not dissolving into a panic.

They intended to use him as bait to lure Gerry to the Lair, but the fact they had lost the big man seemed to worry them exceedingly. They kept muttering about having failed and 'the boss' not being too happy. They kept looking at Mark -- or, at least he thought they did; he couldn't see their eyes for the masks they wore, but he could feel the heat of their gazes. He was expendable. As soon as they had Gerry, it would be a bullet in the brain for Mark, and a short trip to the bottom of the harbor with cement shoes. Or would they just dump his body somewhere, let the media cry a storm about his death and blow over quickly? He'd prefer that to some kind of lingering horror story. Better for his family, too, to know right away rather than wondering.

How could I be so careless?

He shivered, hunching his shoulders against the cold. He was so tired, from lack of sleep, from running all around the city, and from the constant tension. A fucking freezer was a terribly cliche place to die. The setting sun peeking through the high windows of the preparation area just beyond the open door did little to lighten Mark's depression.

Oh, sure, dying at the hands of thugs was nothing new in Necropolis. Getting himself in over his head investigating a story was part and parcel to being a journalist, but he would have preferred something a little more glamorous. Too, it'd be nice if the greys were concerned about something he knew and not how he might be used to put the screws on somebody else. Mark wasn't sure he cared for being a tool.

He smiled smugly around his gag. At least he'd been right about one thing: there was more to the Villain's Lair than met the eye.

A loud voice cracking and echoing in the hushed, tense silence made Mark and all three of the greys jump. They turned and Mark watched five more men approaching. The first was an older man and Mark turned a snort of amusement into a gagging cough. The apparent leader looked like something straight out of a gangster movie. He wore an expensive suit, several rings, and trailed bodyguards. The young man trotting obediently at his side was obviously a relation. He sneered at Mark, who gave him the evil eye right back, refusing to be intimidated.

"You moronic imbeciles!" said the mob boss.

"Father," said the young man, glancing significantly behind them.

The older man shrugged him off with a glare, but kept his mouth shut until the walk-in door closed behind them, leaving Mark alone in a suddenly very cramped space with three gray-garbed people out of one of his worst memories, and two possibly Italian gangsters. Lovely.

"Where is May?" the mob boss demanded.

By unspoken agreement, the Grey Matter agent with his arm in a sling spoke, "We are waiting for him."

"Here?" the Italian shrieked. "For your reputation," he continued, snarling with badly concealed rage, "you had better fucking know what you're doing."

"Mr. Vanzetti," the grey went on, "for what you are being paid, we do not appreciate your interference."

"My interference? You pompass, arrogant swine!" He stuttered to a stop as the two other greys clicked off the safeties on their weapons.

Mark watched with interest.

"Your involvement in this matter is irrelevant at this time," spoke the first grey.

"I-irrelev ...!"

Mark jerked as the gangster slammed against the door, leaving two identical trails of blood to follow as he slid to a stop on the floor. The son had his hand in his coat, white-faced and wide-eyed, watching the guns now trained on him.

"I trust," said the grey coldly, "that you will be more obedient than your father."

The hand fell away from the coat. The younger Vanzetti licked his lips nervously and nodded his head.

"Very good. I'm sure he knows we have Marshall by now. Move your men away and wait for our call." His voice hardened. "Do not interfere again, or we shall be seriously displeased."

"No, no, of course not!" He nodded and shook his head quickly, then turned and hustled away.

With the door back open, the grey sent one of the others out into the prep area. Mark could see him texting rapidly while the remaining grey grabbed the dead mobster and dragged him into the actual freezer part of the walk-in. Mark curled his hands as close to his body as he could manipulate them and shivered.

Oh, God, he thought. If I'm to die in a freezer, please at least let it be quick!

"Those Vanzetti cannot be trusted," said the grey to his leader in a low voice.

"Tolerating their incompetence will no longer be required once we have May," the other replied, and this time Mark's shiver had nothing to do with the cold.