Comic Book Hero Chapter 14

It had all happened so fast.

“Sweet Jesus!”

The expletive burst from Tom out into the chill night sky, three hundred feet above the scene of violence at the Stonestown Galleria. He stared downward helplessly, mesmerized by the winking flashes of gunfire that had erupted from almost a score of automatic weapons. He was torn, he wanted to help, needed to help, but his body was unable to shake off its shock at the sudden explosion of events.

Their were at least eight of the young black men wearing the sky blue jackets, and each of them now had a handgun out, firing back at the still confused but rapidly recovering police. Two cops were down, being pulled back into cover by their fellow officers. One of them was even struggling to stand, clutching at his stomach, where the bulletproof vest had saved his life.

“Tom, what the hell is going on?”

Mike’s tinny voice caused Tom to blink, snapping him out of his temporary trance. He became aware of the telephoto lens mounted on his glove, the image it was feeding both to his own goggle display, and to the computer screens of his team members over a hundred miles away. Shaking his head, he pointed the camera at the scene below, and sent his voice out over the airwaves and into the night.

“I don’t know, Mike, but I think the cops just stumbled into something they weren’t expecting. Murray, are you still monitoring the police tac frequencies?”

“Yeah, flyboy, I’ve got it. The cops are saying these guys are some local gang, call themselves the ‘Blue Devils’. Um, someone just said that these guys must’ve been doing a drug deal, and spooked when they saw the cops coming at ‘em. Christ, they figure it’s some sort of mistake! Uh, wait, the SWAT guy just said that they’ve got these guys pinned down, and the two teams on the other side are running from the other end of the Galleria right now. They think they can come at them from behind, if the cops out here can just keep them in one spot. The SWAT guy thinks they can do it.”

“Good,” Mike interjected, his voice tight. “They won’t need us. And there’s probably nothing we can do, anyway.”

Tom grunted, silently agreeing. He was still stunned by the suddenness of the whole thing. He had arrived on scene and set himself up less than ten minutes before the first gunshot had rung out. The gangsters below currently outnumbered the police, but the tactical situation was obviously in the cops’ favor. They had taken cover behind the cars already in the parking lot, whereas the Blue Devils were pinned against the bare wall and the scant protection of two cement planters and a mailbox. Even as he watched, Tom saw one of the gangbangers fall to the bullets of the SWAT teams’ M-16 assault rifles. When the other police officers arrived, they would be in position for a perfect crossfire. It looked like Mike was right, there wouldn’t be any need for his aid.

“Oh, shit. Tom, what about the van?”

An icicle drew a line down Tom’s back, as Mikes’ words reminded him of the kidnapped officer. In the excitement of the sudden shootout they had completely forgotten about Molly Wu, who they had seen taken by the trio of suspected rapists just seconds before the gunfight had started, and spirited away in an old Ford van. He spun in midair, scanning the parking lot, suddenly desperate for a glimpse of the van in the panicking crowd. With her fellow officers pinned down or on foot, it didn’t take a genius to see that he was probably her only chance of getting out of this alive.

Tom was just turning, preparing to fly a search over the perimeter of the lot, when Murray’s voice stopped him cold.

“Flyboy, the Devils just took a hostage!”

It was true. From somewhere two of the Blue Devils had grabbed one of the mall patrons. It was a boy in a red sweatshirt, maybe fourteen years old, his terrified face marred by two streams of tears. One of the gangsters held the boy against himself as a shield, his arm locked across the child’s chest. The other blue jacket had one hand wrapped in his hair, twisting cruelly, the gun in his other hand jammed into the boy’s face. They shouted at the police, either demands or threats, Tom couldn’t tell which from the height where he hovered watching. But whatever it was worked, for the police were now holding their fire, as the rest of the still standing gangbangers lined up behind their brethren and their terrified hostage. An overwhelming sense of unreality dragged at Tom’s mind like wet linen.

Christ, it’s déjà vu all over again! Just like that other parking lot with Holly.

Time seemed to slow, like a desperate man running in wet sand. Tom knew that he had to make a decision; who should he try to help? For an instant and an eternity both, doubt warred inside him, and then just as suddenly it vanished. Once again, a wall of ice seemed to rise up inside the flying man, shielding him from the raw turmoil of his emotions, bringing a clarity to his thoughts that he now desperately needed. Fear was once more just a fact, and adrenalin was only another fuel to feed the machine that he had just become. Swiftly he analyzed the situation, set his priorities, and made his decisions. Officer Molly Wu was a volunteer and a professional and she would just have to take her chances a little bit longer, the boy had to come first.

“Murray!” Tom snapped, as he dug inside one of the pouches of his bandoleer with his free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the telescopic lens. The camera and goggles allowed him to look at what he was doing without missing any of the tense action below. “My equipment can pick up the tactical frequencies of the SWAT teams’ radios. Can it also send on them?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, no problem. I can do it from here, and reroute it through the transmitter back at the loft. What, do you want me to broadcast something to the cops?”

“Not you, me,” he replied, as he pulled free three objects that looked like a six inch galvanized pipes perforated with a grid work of quarter inch holes. The ends were capped, with a pull ring attached to a hole in one end. “Set it up so I can transmit, but don’t turn it on until I say so.”

“Man, are you crazy? They tape all these transmissions. If you say anything over the air, they’ll have a record of your voice, proof that you exist. We’re not supposed to do that, remember?”

“It’s a chance I’m going to have to take. Just set it up, and wait for my signal.”

With that, Tom quickly pulled off the arming ring at the end of each of the perforated pipes, letting the rings fall unnoticed to the ground below. Hovering there, he held the three pipes straight out from his body in his right hand, poised and ready to fall. His left hand he let drop to his side, pointing straight down, the camera lens mounted on his wrist showing the scene directly below him.

For long tense seconds the tableau held, a nerve wracking eternity as the blue-jacketed gang of thugs backed out into the parking lot, protected by their human shield. All their weapons except one were pointed at the four cops who faced them, the exception being the one threat that really held the officers at bay. They huddled behind the boy, a snarling pack of jackals willing to commit any act no matter how heinous in order to get away. But Tom had no eyes for them, his entire attention had focused onto a single object only, like a pinpoint of light, with no room for anything else. Once more as on that night with Holly, his plan could only work if that that one crucial weapon was not pointing at its intended target.

Finally it came, the moment when the thug threatening the boy could no longer take the weight of the weapon he pointed at the boys head. He turned it instead towards the advancing police, brandishing it, adding his own shouted threats to those of his fellows. Instantly Tom dropped the objects in his hand, and as they tumbled toward the earth below he told his waiting friend, “Now!

“FLASH-BANG! FLASH-BANG!”

The one remaining plainclothes officer hesitated, knowing from his academy days the proper response, but unable to react in time to the new threat. Fortunately the better trained SWAT members reacted as one, closing their eyes and averting their gaze. Murray’s homemade flash-bang grenades struck the pavement of the parking lot exactly dead center between them and the gangsters, the impact bouncing them back up into the air and setting off the first explosions within. The chemical powered blast was of low temperature, and blew the packed flash powder of the grenade out through the perforated holes to form a two-foot globe of expanding dust around each grenade. The secondary explosions occurred an instant later, a high temperature spark that ignited the growing cloud, and for an instant a piece of the sun came to earth. Three four-million candlepower flashes lit up the parking lot brighter than day for just an instant, casting flickering shadows off of objects over a thousand yards away. Closer by its sudden brightness burned retinas and fried brain synapses, blinding and disorienting any who were unlucky enough to be caught staring at the sudden slice of hell that had so unexpectedly materialized before them.

Just like that it was over, as the eight remaining gang-bangers and one unlucky cop collapsed to the pavement of the Stonestown Galleria. The only ones still standing in the urban battlefield were the members of the Swat team and, ironically, the young hostage who had also had his eyes closed, out of fear rather than training. He stood there stunned and blinking, staring down at his former captors who now writhed on the ground, clawing at their eyes.

Belatedly the other two decoy teams arrived, in time to assist in securing the hapless victims of Tom’s grenade attack, and to treat those who had suffered the more serious wounds of gunshots. Janice Kwan, the decoy officer from burglary, took charge of the traumatized former hostage. They sat on the curb as she held his trembling body to her breast, gently rocking him as she whispered soothing sounds that needed no words to be understood. But Tom Blackwood, the man responsible for it all, saw none of this. He was already gone, lost in the night and a desperate race to save one more life.

*****

“Not quite, Flyboy. Turn a little bit more east, the signal’s still getting stronger. Yeah, that’s it. Okay, stop, it’s fading! A little bit more north. That’s it, you’ve got it! Just lift your left arm, and you’ll be pointing right at her. Or at least at the wire she’s wearing.”

Tom hovered above the city, the GPS locator in his equipment proclaiming his altitude at slightly over five hundred feet. He was facing eastwards, but the directional loop formed by the antenna in his bandoleer was oriented towards the north, and the fading signal coming from Molly Wu’s hidden wire. It was faint, the transmitter not having been designed with this kind of range, and only Tom’s great height made it possible to receive it.

“Okay, I’m heading north. Can you guys make out any words yet?”

“Not really, bro. Just bits and pieces. I’ve heard some muffled sounds, I think maybe they’ve gagged the girl. But they still haven’t found the wire, so that probably means they haven’t tried to molest her yet. We’ve still got some time, but as soon as they start they’ll find that wire and know she’s a cop. We’ve got to find her before then.”

Tom only grunted in agreement, already speeding towards the source of the weak signal. He stopped several times to reorient himself, as the coil built into the webbing of his bandoleer had not been designed to be a directional antenna. The task was compounded by the fact that the fugitives were still on the move, and in fact seemed to be wandering around almost without any destination in mind at all. Maybe they were spooked by the gun battle back at the Galleria? Yeah, that would figure. It might be a while before they calmed down, and decided that they were safe, decided that all the noise was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with them. Okay, that makes sense too, so let’s run with that.

So these guys calm down, maybe even joke about it. The escape makes them feel excited, kind of jazzed that they got out of it without being seen. Maybe makes them feel invincible. So what do they do now?

They go on with the party.

“Mike, weren’t you recording the wire on the girl before she was snatched?”

“I—shit, Tom, I still am! I’ve got everything she’s been transmitting since you got on scene. We were going to study it later, to see how the cops conduct a decoy sting operation, remember?”

Tom remembered, it had been the main reason for him to be out there that night. The rest had been a complete surprise. It was supposed to be an opportunity to observe the SFPD on a major bust, not get involved in a firefight.

“Okay, stop recording and start scanning. Go back to when these guys first grabbed the girl and follow it into the present. See if they say anything about where they were planning to take her before all this crap hit the fan. Then get on those records from Los Angeles, see if the LA cops noticed any pattern to where they took the other victims for the assaults. Maybe we can figure out where they’re taking her, and get there before the axe falls.”

“I’m on it, bro.”

“Hey, Flyboy, you don’t think they’ll still go through with it, do you? I mean, after all that’s happened, don’t you think they’ll just call it a night? Maybe they’ll just dump her on the sidewalk somewhere and go home.”

“We better hope that they don’t, Pablo,” Tom replied grimly. “If they get spooked, I think it’s more likely they’ll decide to get rid of the witness, rather than just let her go. Keep trying to find that signal, and take over recording everything while Mike’s scanning that disk.”

For long minutes the three men lapsed into silence, unbroken except for Murray’s occasional directions to Tom as they continued to follow the increasingly obscure signal from Molly Wu’s wire. The tension seemed to crackle over the electronic link that connected them, an omnipresent static that left gritted teeth and a band of tension behind their eyes. They worked feverishly, always aware of the silent passing of what little time the kidnapped police officer had left. Finally, Mike’s excited shout broke the grim silence.

“Tom, I’ve got something! Listen, those guys said something kind of weird when they grabbed the girl, just before the shooting started.”

“Good going, Mike! Play it back for us.”

There was a moment of electronic noise as the other two men focused their attention, one in his warehouse home over a hundred miles away, the other hovering motionless a half mile above one of the most famous cities in the world. Then came the tinny sounds of the surveillance recording, testifying to the last few moments that night before it all went to hell. As he listened, Tom’s memories gave him pictures to go with the sounds of Molly Wu’s kidnapping.

“I see the van now. The driver is looking right at me.”

“Look the other way, Wu! Don’t let him see you’ve spotted him. And don’t let him see your lips move, either.”

“Yessir. Are we sure he’s fixed on me, and not one of these other girls?”

“Oh, he’s got his eye on you, Molly. No doubt about it, he’s locked onto you like radar. But you’re right, you are too close to the crowd, he might not want to risk it. Start walking away from them, real slow. Look out at the parking lot, just another kid waiting for her ride home. Yeah, that’s it, looking good there, Molly.”

“Mike, that’s too far back, we don’t have time for this. Speed forward to where they grab her off the street.”

“Yeah, right Tom. Sorry. Okay, I think this is it.”

Mike’s voice was followed by the sound of squealing brakes and the sliding of the vans side door, the scrabble of two large men as their feet hit the sidewalk, the sharp sound of Molly’s quickly muffled scream, which was probably only partially faked. The struggle as she was dragged into the van, its door slamming. And as it did, there briefly came the voice of one of her kidnappers, the last clear sounds before the epic gun battle.

“HA! Don’t fight me, you little slant bitch. We’re just gonna take you to see Jesus. We—what the FUCK?!!”

The sound of gunfire and the incoherent shouting of the three men in the van, mixed with officer Wu’s muffled cries of fear and pain. One of the kidnappers screaming, “Go, go, go!” at the driver, who obliged with a shrieking of tortured rubber. More noises, curses and garbled instructions, maybe even the sounds of a brief struggle, all growing fainter as the short ranged transmitter swiftly traveled farther and farther away.

“That’s it, Tom. After that, we just get the signal itself, with maybe a few words here and there, but nothing that makes sense. But that part about taking her to see Jesus, Tom, I think that’s important.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“It’s something I remember from the records they sent up from LA, the reports about the previous rapes. I think one of their detectives mentioned that two of the girls where found dumped on church property. Yeah, here it is! Victim number four and number seven were both dumped in church parking lots, within sight of the churches themselves. One girl was even found by the parish priests. And they think the girls were all dumped near the same sites they were raped at. Hey, here’s one that was left in a cemetery! It doesn’t say if it’s a church cemetery or not, but when you take it in context with that Jesus remark—you see what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I do! And weren’t most of those girls dressed in school uniforms, the kinds that are run by the church? We might have a pattern here, something that the cops missed. Great work, Mike.

“Now look, go through all of those reports and find the addresses of where each victim was dumped, and then run them through one of those street map websites. Most maps show the locations of churches and schools. See if there are any near the spots where these girls were left. Murray, you and I’ll keep on trying to locate that signal, but I want you to also go through the rest of the recordings you made from that cops’ wire, see if these guys mention anything that might relate to churches or cemeteries.”

“Roger that, flyboy.”

“I’m on it, Tom.”

*****

Molly Wu had never been so terrified in her life. She felt fragile, as if the slightest jar would shatter her into a million pieces, like so many shards of broken glass. She tried to pull herself together, but the reality of her situation was proving too overwhelming. With every tick of the clock, she became more and more sure that she was going to die.

The bag over her head was hot and scratchy, as was the duct tape around her wrists, but the discomfort was nothing compared to that caused by the hand that was stroking her thigh underneath her skirt. She wanted to strike out, to hit her tormentor with her bound hands, smash his face in with her knees, but she forced herself not to. She couldn’t hurt him, not seriously, and if she did the others would just turn their attention to her all the sooner. They would find the wire taped to her ribs, the microphone clipped to her bra, and then they would kill her. She knew that it would happen eventually, but Molly was no fatalist. She would grit her teeth and put it off for as long as she could, desperately clinging to her last shred of hope, the fading chance that she would be rescued.

When the brown van had pulled up next to her back at the Galleria parking lot, she had pretended to be caught by surprise. She had barely glanced at it before the rough cloth bag was slipped over her head, and so she hadn’t gotten a good look at her captures. But she had studied the pictures in the file sent up from LA, and she was pretty sure she knew who was who on the other side of the bag.

“We been driving around for half an hour now, Andy. There’s no sign of cops, nobody following us, nothin’. It’s just like I said, I don’t think they even knew we were there.” The guy behind the wheel was John Lincoln, probably the most stable one of the group. When the gunfire had broken out he was the only one who had kept his cool, and had managed to get them all out of there in one piece. He was by far the most intelligent of the three, although with this bunch that didn’t mean much.

“FUCK ME, man! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Did you see that, man! Cops was all over the place, shooting at the niggas, the niggas shootin’ at the cops. Niggas was winnin’, too. I saw two cops go down before we peeled, man, it was so fuckin’ bad! I thought we was dead, man, I thought we was fuckin-A dead! Fuck me, man!” The short one with the high-pitched voice who kept stroking her leg was Billy Tighe, who had a jerky and disjointed way of speaking. In fact he chattered like a chipmunk on caffeine. He was described in the LA report as excitable, almost hyperactive, and he had been talking non-stop since their panicky run from the gunfight at the Galleria. His actions were so compulsive, Molly had the impression that he didn’t even realize that he was touching her. She remembered from his file that he liked to use a straight edged razor.

But it was the third man in the back of the van who caused Molly the most apprehension. His name was Andy Barton, the leader of the three, and his file had had red flags all over it. The only one of the trio who had done hard time, Barton had spent fourteen months of a five year stretch for drug dealing in the Corcoran state prison in Fresno, back in the early nineties. During that time Corcoran had earned an infamous reputation for its brutality, when it was discovered that prison officials were forcing inmates to participate in ‘gladiator’ style fights for their own amusement. The whole sorry incident came to light when one of the fighters was shot and paralyzed by one of the guards, with the ensuing investigation resulting in eight people being indicted, and the largest civil suite ever brought against a prison by an inmate in the history of the United States penal system. Andrew Barton had been forced to participate in over a dozen of those staged fights, which went far in explaining how he had managed such an early release.

Molly could easily remember the statistics from Barton’s file now, reviewing them over and over again as she shivered in the darkness under the stifling bag. He was 6 foot three inches tall, 270 pounds, with the slab-like physique of a prison-yard weight lifter. His chest and arms sported both scars and the rough designs of jail tattoos, including two teardrops at the corner of his left eye. The teardrops were a brag, a sign saying to all other inmates that he was a man not to mess with, and that he had twice taken a human life. The comments made by one of the compilers of Barton’s records stated that, although there was no proof that Barton actually was guilty of killing two people, it should be taken as a fact that he was totally capable of doing so.

“The hell with it then. If the cops weren’t after us, we’ve got nothing to worry about. Let’s take this bitch out and party.” When he spoke Barton’s voice was as deep as his cavernous chest was wide, and yet surprisingly soft, like the purring of an amused tiger. It was that voice more than his words that caused Molly’s terror to spike, and an involuntary whimper to escape past the gag between her teeth.

Billy Tighe was still so excited that he was giggling. His hands’ errant stroking had slowed and become more deliberate, as he flipped Molly’s plaid skirt up and began to tug at her panties. “Hehehehehehe! We’re gonna party tonight, baby-girl, we’re gonna fuck you on the cross and show you what a white cock can do for you. Gonna take you to the cross, slant, and we—oww!”

A meaty thwack accompanied Tighe’s cry of pain. Barton’s admonishment was delivered in a sharp growl, just another dominant animal putting a lesser member of the pack in his place.

“Hands off, asshole, you know the rules. I get the first taste, you get sloppy seconds.”

“Sloppy seconds after me,” chimed in Lincoln, laughing. Tighe scowled, but he didn’t protest, and his hands had stopped their intrusive roaming over Molly’s body. Before long, though, his natural exuberance reasserted itself, and soon he was practically chanting. “Gonna take her to the cross and show her Jesus, gonna fuck her ‘til she begs for it, man, gonna take away her pretty panties and stick it to her, gonna make her moan and groan and cry like a baby, gonna—” and on and on, a litany of depravity as the van made its way through the night.

Molly no longer even tried to stop herself from shaking.

*****

“Tom, you were right, man, there is a connection. I’ve found five more dump sites, all within two blocks of a church, cemetery, or a church run school. These guys have definitely got some sort of cross fetish.”

“Cross? Oh, shit. Flyboy, I didn’t make the connection, but a couple of times on these tapes I’ve heard one of these punks say something about a cross. I thought they were talking about a ‘cross street’, or maybe ‘across town’, but the Rockstar might really have something there. What if it is another church they’re talking about?”

“No. No, Murray, if it was a church, they’d call it ‘the church’, not ‘the cross’. I think it has to be Mt. Davidson.”

“Hmmm, yeah, that makes sense. But what if you’re wrong? What if it is just another church they’re talking about?”

Tom’s reply was grim. “Then she’s dead, Murray. This city is named after a saint, remember? There must be dozens of churches in this town. If she’s not at Davidson, we’ll never find her in time.”

Mt. Davidson is a sorely misnamed piece of real estate. At only 938 feet above sea level it hardly qualified as more than a large hill, but it was still the highest point in the city and to the citizens of San Francisco that meant it was their very own mountain, case closed. The top of Mt. Davidson was covered by six acres of lush woodlands known as the Sutro Forest, named for the one time mayor of the city who in 1886 had sponsored the planting of hundreds of bluegum eucalyptus trees there for arbor day. The forest was crisscrossed with hiking trails, and dotted with park-like glades that were a long time favorite for picnickers, but by far the biggest drawing card on the mountain was the 103 foot cross.

The original cross had been a forty-foot wooden structure, erected for Easter services in 1923. It had since undergone four more incarnations, each one taller than the last, until it had reached its current status as the tallest such structure in the world. San Franciscans loved the huge concrete and steel landmark, and until 1997 they had kept it lit by spotlights much of the year. But then a special interest group had successfully argued that having the cross on city owned property violated the separation of church and state, and demanded that the monument be torn down. Instead, the city sold the cross and the one third acre of ground around it to the Armenian Americans Organizations of Northern California, who turned it into a monument to Armenians killed during World War I by the simple expedient of installing a brass plaque at its base. The permanent spotlights were removed, but the AAONC now uses portable spotlights to light the huge edifice twice a year, on Easter Sunday and again on April 24th, Armenian Martyr’s day.

They had also declined the cost of landscaping around the monument. The stairs to the base of the cross were overgrown with brambles and poison ivy plants, but a walking path and a fire road still give easy access to the meadow around it. The park itself had closed at 10 o’clock, and there was no one to see as the brown van made its way up the fire road. No one heard the soft rumble of the tires as they passed over the compacted dirt, or the softer swish as it rolled out onto the grass of the meadow. And no one heard the excited laughter of the three animals inside the van, or the muffled screams of their terrified victim.

*****

“Damn, I think we got lucky. Guys, there’s a van parked on the grass halfway between the woods and the cross. I can’t be sure it’s them, though, I’ve seen people camping out here before. Murray, see if you can still pick up the girls signal.”

“Will do, Tom. Hey, have you decided what to do if it is them?”

“Yeah, Pablo, I think I have,” Tom answered, as he hovered a hundred feet above the suspect vehicle. As he talked Tom was rummaging inside one of the oversized pockets of his cargo pants. “If it is them, I have to get them out of that van and out into the open, where I have the advantage. And I’ve got to do it without them hurting their hostage. The only way I can do that is to use the ice pick.”

The object Tom finally pulled from his pocket did indeed look like an ice pick, although one with a large handle and a spike as thick as a ten penny nail. One of Murray’s devices, the handle contained a cartridge of CN tear gas under such high pressure, that at a touch of the release button at the end the entire contents would exit from the tip of the hollow spike in under three seconds. The spike itself was made of a hardened tool steel with a titanium point, and could easily punch through the roof of a car, which was exactly how Tom intended to use it.

“Yeah, I guess this is just the sort of situation I designed the pick for. And you better get it ready, buddy, ‘cause it looks like we’re getting a pretty strong signal off that cops’ wire. Yeah, I can hear them clear now, it must be them in that v—shit, Tom, get down there NOW! They just found the wire!”

*****

The moment she had been dreading had finally, inevitably come. When a cackling Billy Tighe reached up and started to grope her breasts Molly finally lost it to the panic, kicking at him with her feet and striking out with her bound hands. She was alone, and she could no longer fool herself that rescue was coming. Fear ripped at her insides with sharp icy fingers, and her throat felt like she was tearing it apart as she screamed and screamed with all her might under the muffling bag.

Billy Tighe let out a squeal of pain when her foot first connected, which turned into an angry snarl just before he punched her in the face. She tasted the hot saltiness of blood as her lip split but she ignored it and kept fighting, kicking and scrabbling, until a rock hard fist drove into her stomach. With an explosive, agonized grunt the breath burst from her body, and along with it her strength to resist. The small part of her mind still capable of rational thought realized that Billy Tighe couldn’t possibly have hit her this hard, and that Andy Barton must have been the one who struck her. She felt two huge hands that she couldn’t resist grasp her by the thighs and pull her across the floor of the van, and then those same two hands ripped the front of her shirt open like it was tissue paper.

“What the fuck?! Hey Linc, take a look at this. She’s fucking wired, man! The slant bitch is a cop.”

Huge, callused fingers forced their way under her bra to where the microphone nestled, and then pulled up hard enough to jerk her body off the floor. She dropped back down painfully when the material tore in two, and felt the jerk of the tape on her belly as her tormenter pulled the mike and it’s transmitter off. Cold air brushed her exposed breasts, but it was despair that wrapped her like a shroud. The worst had finally happened, and she felt herself sinking now, into a blackness that seemed to have neither bottom nor air, and which threatened to drag her down to a place that was even darker. Vainly, she tried to remember a Buddhist prayer from her childhood.

From his place behind the wheel John Lincoln’s voice rang out, angry. “If that bitch is a cop, it means all those blue suits at the mall know who we are. We gotta waste her now, Andy. Dump her out the door, and let’s get the hell outta this—HEY!”

Lincoln was interrupted by the thud of a large and heavy object landing on top of the van. The three rapists and would-be murderers looked up at the metal roof above them, startled, as whatever it was scrabbled briefly overhead. The noise ended with the thunk of metal piercing metal, as a two-inch needle of bright steel suddenly appeared, sticking down between the two front seats. John Lincoln jumped, his hands frantically scrabbling for the machine gun on the floor. He had barely touched it when the CN gas flooded through the spike, hitting him full in the face with eye tearing agony.

In seconds the close quarters of the van were filled with the gas, and the trio of monsters suddenly lost all interest in their helpless captive. They yowled in pain as the irritants burned their lungs, cursing and hacking, scrabbling to find the door with eyes that could no longer see. As they tumbled out of the vehicle to sprawl on the grass covered meadow, they completely forgot about Molly Wu, huddled on the floor of the van. The gas had affected her the least, thanks to the bag over her head. In fact the smell of the CN had acted like a shot of adrenalin, a spark that burned away at the fog in her soul. With a renewed sense of hope Molly scrambled to the door at the back of the vehicle, her eyes clenched shut and the bag held tightly to her face.

John Lincoln was the first to make it out of the caustic interior of the vehicle, dropping the Ingram machine gun as he fell to his knees, which was the only reason Tom failed to see it. But Lincoln failed to see the figure in black because of the tears that blurred his vision, and because he never thought to look up. As he stumbled away from the van the hard crook of Tom’s cane hooked itself over around his neck and jerked him upright, choking off what little fresh air he had tried to breath in. He felt himself lifted off his feet and pulled backwards, a short trip that ended with him slamming into the side of the van with stunning force. When the pressure let up he started to drop to his knees, only to be pulled up by the hook around his throat and slammed against the van again, and then again. Finally the crushing pressure around his throat disappeared, but Lincoln was too far gone to appreciate the release, as he sank to the ground in a boneless heap.

Tom didn’t waste any more time on the fallen man. He spun around with a grace that no dancer alive could duplicate and launched himself into the air over the other side of the smoking van. The other two kidnappers had already exited and regained their feet, stumbling away from the van in search of the clean air of the night. Billy Tighe was painting the darkness with high-pitched screams of pain alternating with foul curses, clawing at his eyes with one hand as he slashed at the empty air with the razor in his other. In contrast Andy Barton was almost silent as he lumbered across the meadow, and his big hands were empty of any weapon. But like a wounded grizzly bear the raw power of his movements held a promise of bloody mayhem, to anybody who got within reach of those clawing hands.

It was the weapon in Tighes’ hand that decided Tom, who aimed himself towards the little man first. From above the hard wooden cane flashed out and hit Tighe just above the wrist, breaking the bone and sending the straight edged razor flying. The little monster howled with pain, an animal like sound devoid of anything human. He never even saw the fist that caught him on the jaw and silenced him, sending him sprawling across the meadow to crumple into an unmoving heap.

Tom had landed on the ground in order to throw the punch, an unnecessary move but for all of that still fiercely satisfying. He had put all the fear and anxiety of the past hour into that punch, and now he was going to pay for the indulgence. Before he could turn around a freight train of solid muscle hit him from the side, as Andy Barton’s tree thick arms wrapped themselves around him and bore him to the ground. The shock of the double blow drove the breath out of Tom, stunning him, bringing a cloud of black to darken his vision. There was a roaring of blood in his ears, which was quickly displaced by the bellow of the half-mad animal that was trying to beat the life right out of him.

Barton straddled Tom’s prone body, one hand wrapped around his throat and the other curled into a fist, which he pounded again and again into his face. Tom’s head rocked with each blow, the padding in his mask only partially protecting him, star-shot blackness beginning to creep over his eyes. Instinctively he tried to lift, but Barton’s weight was too great for him to raise. Desperately now, Tom threw himself in the only direction he could, and with a defiant snarl he suddenly popped out of Barton’s clutches, skittering along the ground for twenty feet and tumbling to a halt at the foot of the giant concrete cross.

Shakily he scrambled to his knees, his head pounding out a drum solo but his sight clearing rapidly. But Barton had also risen to his feet and was lumbering towards him once again, picking up speed, an ugly sound coming from his throat that promised a bloody fate to whoever he could lay his hands on.

Still to weak to either fly or run, Tom Blackwood used the only option left to him; he stopped thinking. Instinct and recently trained reflexes took over, as he set his feet and prepared for the onrushing opponent. And as the maddened Barton came on, without consciously willing it his right fist flashed out, became an open hand. Just as he had practiced in the Reisbach’s gym not two hours earlier it struck the forehead of the charging killer with a single sharp snapping blow.

The result was as spectacular as he could have prayed for. Barton’s head snapped backwards, but his momentum kept his feet going in their forward direction. They quickly left the ground and for a single moment frozen in time Barton hung in mid air, and then came crashing down with a thud that could have been measured on the Richter scale.

For a moment Tom watched the unmoving form with dull eyes, then shook his head and swore softly. With a deep breath he turned away and started for the van, his booted feet already leaving the ground. He was just starting to answer the frantic calls of his friends on the other end of the radio in his mask when the first bullets struck him in the chest, and whirled him around like a cork bobbing in the middle of a rough sea.

The staccato sound of the Ingram machine gun told Tom what was happening, but without that he wouldn’t have known he was being shot. He could feel the bullets striking him, tossing his body like a leaf in the wind, but the blows seemed no more powerful than a series of good punches. The Spectra body armor kept the bullets from penetrating through his clothing, but it was the lack of resistance that saved him from serious injury. The small analytical part of Tom’s mind noticed this, deciding it was a good thing that he had been lifting when John Lincoln came around the van and opened fire on him. But the rest of his mind was focused on staying alive.

Tom slipped to the side, trying to get out of the stream of hot projectiles, but there was no place to hide. On full automatic fire the machine gun would have emptied its magazine in seconds, but Lincoln was the smart one of the three, only shooting in controlled bursts of three or four rounds each. The slugs just kept coming, spinning Tom around, forcing him back towards the landmark cross as they sought to find a weakness in his protection.

“YEEEAAAHH!!” It was a bizarre figure that burst out from the dark and struck Lincoln from behind. Molly Wu, free of the bag but with her hands still tapped together, her torn shirt hanging open to expose her bare breasts. She screamed in wordless primal rage, releasing the terror and humiliation she had suffered on her tormentor and using a tire iron from the van to do it. Her first blow took him across the shoulders, knocking him to his knees. The sudden attacked stunned Lincoln, who somehow still managed to keep his grip on the Ingram, but only until Molly’s second blow, which broke his arm in three places. His gasp of pain was lost, as Molly continued to scream and kick at his prone body. Hot tears ran down the contorted mask of her face, as Inspector Molly Wu, SFPD, took back her life and reclaimed her soul from the devils who had taken it.

Tom stood on shaky feet watching the spectacle at the other end of the meadow, drawing in great gulps of the cold night air and absently cataloguing the bruises he knew he would have tomorrow. He started to walk, too tired to fly, but as he turned his steps toward Molly and John Lincoln he noticed that Barton was once more awake, and slowly rising to his knees. Oh yeah. Dieter said that shot to the head is only good for about thirty seconds. Almost absently he stepped up and kicked Barton under the chin, sending him sprawling once more in a senseless heap. And that’s for those girls in LA, you son of a bitch.

He looked up once more to check on Molly, who had stopped her assault on the hapless John Lincoln and now knelt on the ground, her head down and her shoulders shaking with her sobbing. For her sake Tom hoped she hadn’t killed the guy, but frankly he was too tired and too sore to really care.

”Congratulations, Flyboy. Three up, three down, even if you did need a little help from the Damsel in Distress.”

“Hooo, far out, bro! That was freakin’ awesome, Tom! Hey, I guess you really are a Super Hero now, dude.”

Tom grinned, feeling some of the fatigue drop away. “Thanks, sports fans. Now do you guys have any idea what I’m going to tell the good detective over there?” Silence greeted his query, and Tom couldn’t help but snort in amusement. “Yeah, I thought so. But don’t worry, I got an idea about this while we were looking for these guys. Here’s what I need you guys to do.”

As Tom explained his plan to his teammates, he pulled several large plastic cable ties from another one of his bandoleers’ pouches, the same kind he used when he was laying cable. Bending down, he rolled Andy Barton’s unconscious form over onto its back, then used one of the cable ties to bind his wrists. The plastic cuffs were incredibly strong, and once on they would not come off until they were cut off with a knife. Tom knew that the police often used cable ties as temporary handcuffs, and had added them to his equipment for the same reason. He used another tie to bind Barton’s legs, then repeated the process with Billy Tighe. When he rose to his feet, he was clutching Tighe’s straight razor in his hand.

Molly Wu also stood, the tire iron clutched in her hands, warily watching the strange apparition that approached her. Although her vision was still blurry from both the gas and her recent cathartic bought of crying, she could still see him clearly enough to be worried by his bizarre appearance. As his long strides brought him closer she took a single step back, brandishing her weapon as she focused on the steel blade in his hand.

Tom stopped a dozen feet from Molly, his hands outspread and his voice soft and reassuring. “Officer Wu, it’s alright. You can relax now, I’m a Federal Agent.”

Molly blinked, the relief at hearing those words briefly warring with the tension still coiled in her stomach. Slowly, she lowered the tire iron, but only by a couple of inches.

“Yo-you’re a fed?” she asked, feeling a brief spike of shame at the tremor in her voice. Now that she was beginning to accept that the danger was gone, some of her normal fiery spirit was returning. Still, she wasn’t yet ready to trust the ominous figure that was brandishing Billy Tighe’s razor before her.

“My team and I are on a deep cover assignment. I was on my way to plant some surveillance on a suspect who lives near here, which is why I’m dressed like this. We broke it off when we heard about what happened at the Galleria, and one of my partners spotted the van you arrived in. I know I look pretty strange, but believe me, I’m one of the good guys.”

When Molly still looked hesitant, he continued. “Look, I don’t have any ID, not in this get up, but I can still prove who I am. I’m in radio contact with my partners, and they’ve pulled your file. Now only another police agency could do that, right? So okay, your name is Molly Ann Wu. You’re a Detective-”

“Inspector, you doofus! In Frisco, they call ‘em Inspectors!”

“Er, I mean Inspector, with the SFPD.”

“Assigned to the Violent Crimes Unit.”

“With the violent Crimes Unit. Your supervisors’ name—”

“Lieutenant John Burke.”

“Is Lieutenant John Burke. You live at-”

“1430 Dredge Lane, in the Richmond.”

“At 1430 Dredge Lane, in the Richmond district. I could keep going if you want, or,” he gestured with the razor, “I could help you get out of all that gray tape. Your choice, Inspector.”

Molly sighed, finally convinced, then dropped the tire iron and held out her bound hands. Tom quickly cut her loose with the sharpened steel, then handed the razor to her as he bent down to check on the injured John Lincoln. He and Molly both breathed a sigh of relief when they saw he was still alive. Tom straightened up, took a deep breath, and prepared to lie his heart out.

“Inspector Wu, I have to ask a favor of you. And yeah, it’s a big one.”

Molly looked at the apparition before her and smiled wearily, brushing a lank bit of hair out of her eyes. “What a coincidence, I just happen to owe you a big one. And by the way, who do I owe it to?”

“Hmmm, well, that’s the favor I need to ask. My team and I have been working this case for over four months now, and we’re getting close to taking down some pretty serious people. But if anyone, anyone finds out that we’re in town, it could blow our whole deal. We risked breaking cover to help you, so I’d like your help to maintain that cover.”

Molly frowned. “What do you mean by maintaining your cover? Do you mean like not talking to the media? I’m not in the habit of doing that, anyway.”

“I mean not talking to anybody. Do not mention me in your report, do not tell your family, and do not tell anybody in your department, either. Take credit for the bust, tell them you got free and took out all these guys yourself. Nobody’s going to call you a liar, and nobody’s going to listen to what these guys say, either. Just keep it to yourself, and I guarantee, I’ll be a happy man.”

But Molly was shaking her head when she answered. “No way, they’ll never buy it. What, do you think I work with idiots? Who’s going to believe that I took out all three of these guys with a bag over my head and my hands tied up.”

“They will if you show them this,” Tom said, tossing her a small canister from another one of his well stocked equipment pouches. Molly caught it deftly, and saw that it was a can of tear gas, the kind of personal protection that could be bought in almost any sporting goods store. “You had that on you when they kidnapped you at the mall. When they stopped you emptied the whole thing inside the van, but since you were wearing that bag over your head it didn’t affect you as much. And while those three goons were rolling around clawing at their eyes, you did a Hank Aaron on them with that tire iron, and then tied them up with cable ties you found in the back of the van. Here, let’s add a little realism to it.” Tom took the rest of his cable ties from their pouch and stepped over to the van, tossing them into the back. At the same time he noticed the spike from his ice pick sticking down from the ceiling. He grasped the doorsill of the van and with a small jump he levered himself up onto the roof, trying not to make it look too easy. With a tug he pulled the ice pick out of its hole, then climbed to his feet and stuck it back in his pocket. Then he looked down, and from his new height he addressed the still hesitant Inspector.

“See? A believable story, and no evidence to contradict it. Just don’t say anything about me. Is it a deal?”

Molly was still frowning, but Tom could tell that he had her. “Okay, you’re right, that story probably would fly. But I still can’t withhold this. I’ve got to at least notify my Lieutenant about you.”

“Agreed. Tell him, but no one else. And ask him to keep quiet about it, at least for a few days. We should be out of your jurisdiction by then, and nobody will even know we were here. So I say again, is it a deal?”

“Alright, Agent Whoever-the-hell-you-are, it’s a deal. As long as I can tell my Lieutenant, it’s his problem, not mine. Now do you have any ideas about how I’m supposed to get these guys downtown?”

Under his mask Tom grinned, finding himself liking the courageous young cop a lot. She had just been through the stuff of nightmares, but instead of needing therapy, she appeared ready to go right back to work this very minute.

“Yeah, I’ve got an idea. Your punching bag over there has a cell phone on his belt, why don’t you use that to call for a ride? But before they arrive, Inspector, you might want to cover up something else.”

Molly blinked in confusion at the reference, but then gasped when she realized what he meant. Looking down at herself, she was mortified when she saw that her shirt was still open, her naked breasts exposed. Quickly she grabbed the ends of her torn shirt and pulled it together, hastily tying them into a knot. When she looked back to the roof of the van, her mysterious rescuer was gone.