CHAPTER 9
ROBIN’S SONG
As they approached the corner booth in the fashionably dim-lit hotel bar, Bloody saw that Sparrow was not alone; another man and a girl were with him. Seeing Sparrow sitting with them, he was reminded again of the appropriateness of the man’s cover name; the little man looked like a bookkeeper or a bank clerk, not at all like one of the Eagle’s top lieutenants. They slid into the curved seat. “Ah, there you are, boys,” Sparrow said cheerfully. “I’d like to introduce you to a couple of my associates. Randolph and Marcus, this is Starling and Robin.” He turned to the couple on his other side and explained, “Randolph and Marcus were loaned us by Chicago.” He turned back to the pair of Ivy-League hoods.
“Starling and Robin will be working with you on your new assignment. Actually, you’ll be working under Starling on this occasion. It’s his job. Miss Robin will assist you.”
Randolph—Blondy—tried to size the girl up in the dim light. He could tell little. She wore shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair. Her features seemed slightly exotic, but she wore simple glasses that tended to obscure the effect. She gave him a half-smile, her lips quirking up on one side. Her severely tailored business suit did not hide the fullness of her figure.
“If I might regain your attention…?” It was the fastidious bald man speaking—Starling. “We have an operation to be planned.”
Steve Rogers wiped his mouth and pushed himself away from the table. He’d eaten his fill now. Jarvis began clearing the dishes away, his movements silent, as if aware that he must not intrude upon Rogers’ thoughts.
His thoughts were largely unpleasant ones. He had gone from the bank to a conference with the police and the local head of the Treasury Department. It had not been a fruitful meeting.
He could tell them little; only what he had discovered, and what had happened to himself. They had little to add. The entire block of buildings on Liberty Place had been searched. The elevator had been tested. It was found to have been dropped down into an abandoned BMT subway tunnel—one never completed and long forgotten. When the elevator was up above, the tunnel beyond was open, and traces had been found of a man’s passage through a newly broken hole into the main subway line. This must have been the exit used by the man who had smuggled out the gold seal. A search of FBI fingerprint records revealed him to be one Andrew “Monk” Mayfair, a West Coast trigger-man with a long record. But there was nothing to connect him with this operation.
An upstairs room in a building two doors south of the warehouse—the building in which Ray Thompson’s body had been found—had shown signs of occupancy: a cot, a wardrobe, a dresser, all from the Salvation Army, and a phone which the telephone company had put in two months earlier in the name of Henry Starling. In the basement of the same building was a blocked shaft which presumably led down to the underground room. A set of wires came up the shaft and were clipped directly and illegally to an outside telephone company line.
Digging was still underway, but they hadn’t yet got through to the underground room. It would be hours yet before the remains of the other two bodies could be recovered. There were no clues to the whereabouts of the missing gold. An inventory showed the amount missing to be worth almost eight-hundred thousand dollars. “Apparently just a preliminary haul,” the Treasury man had observed wryly.
They had nipped the operation in the bud; a mere four-fifths of a million missing. And at the cost of two men, and another in the critical ward. It was nothing to be proud about. Gaughan’s words kept ringing in Steve Rogers’ head: “You are responsible.”
He was responsible.
He had led two good men, family men, to their deaths. And he had lost the only man who could have told them where the gold was. They were still digging, traces, clues might be found. But he doubted it. The responsibility was his. And he’d botched it.
The FBI was checking on Monk Mayfair’s recent associations, searching out the connections that had brought him to New York. There might be a lead there, a path might open up to Mayfair’s employers. But if it did, it would be the FBI’s baby. It required days and weeks of careful footwork in which the FBI excelled. There was nothing there for Captain America.
There was so little to go on—the gold seal, the tunnels themselves. About all it told him was that someone had great daring, great technical skills. Using a laser beam for an assassination! And using it to cut through the concrete floor of the vault as well. This wasn’t a common, unimaginative, syndicate job. It had been planned by a man with daring, and a man with the scientific know-how available to put his fantastic plan into operation. Who could it be?
Jarvis strode silently into the room again. “The phone, sir. The police, downtown.” He took it on the extension.
“A couple of patrolmen who have the squad car on that beat,” his caller told him. “They remember seeing a car parked on Liberty Place the night Mayfair was killed. Reason they remember it, it was parked there from early evening until sometime after midnight. They were going to ticket it, but it had diplomatic plates. A black, ’66 Lincoln Continental.”
“Do they remember the license number?”
“Nope; didn’t take it down. But we’re checking the registry for a Continental with DPL tags. There’ll be a god’s plenty of ’em, that’s for sure.”
It was a lead; it might develop into something solid, and it might not. But there was still nothing in it for now.
“The phone again, sir.” It was Jarvis. “A young lady. She refuses to identify herself, but wished to speak with you.”
A girl! Could it be the girl? The girl who worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Divisions, whose life he had twice saved* without learning her name, and whose face reminded him of another girl he had known and lost, a lifetime before?
But when he heard her voice, he knew it was not she.
“Captain America? I must see you! I have valuable information for you.”
“Who is this?”
“My name doesn’t matter, you don’t know me anyway. I’m a SHIELD agent, and I’ve managed to work my way into a fantastic organization run by a man who calls himself the Eagle. Of his highly placed agents, I’ve met two—Sparrow and Starling.” Her voice was breathless. “I haven’t time to talk long. Where can we meet?”
“You could come here.”
“I dare not. I think they’re watching your place. They killed one man who tried to get through to you.”
“Did you…?”
“I sent him, yes. You found the gold seal, I know. But there’s so much more.”
Steve thought quickly. This could be a trap, but even if it was, it would lead him to the very people he sought. It would be best to play along. Besides, the girl might be telling the truth, in which case…
“Where do you suggest?”
“It’s got to be where we can talk, where no one can bug us. How about the United Nation Plaza? You know, where all the benches are? It must be deserted at this hour”—Rogers glanced at the clock; it was 9:07—“and it’s convenient.”
“All right. How soon can you get there?”
“I’ll have to get free here. Give me forty-five minutes. Okay?”
“Nine-fifty?” “Right.”
There was a click, and the line was dead.
The Stark mansion was deceptive from the outside. A passerby would see it only as a town house. It was larger than its neighbors, being almost twice as wide, but its brownstone facade was set back from the quiet, tree-shaded side street, its miniature front yard, filled with ivy and shrubbery, filling the gap to the sidewalk. All the other houses on this block sat flush with each other. If one looked closely at the fittings—the brass door knocker, the stained-glass fanlight over the door, the dragon’s-claw foot-scraper at the side of the porch—one saw undeniable quality. The house appeared to be carefully kept as well. The woodwork was all freshly painted, unstained by the city’s soot and corrosive air. The windows were all sparkling clean, despite the fact that almost all were discreetly shaded by rich draperies.
But this view from the street showed only a wealthy town house. An aerial view would have shown much more.
Most of the houses on this block had back yards. These were small, but big enough for patios, a flower garden, even a small swimming pool. Each back yard abutted the back yard of the house on the opposite side of the block.
Both the house to the east, and the one to the west of the Stark mansion did not have back yards. Instead, they had high walls that extended to the center of the block on their outside property lines, where they met identical walls from the houses that backed them up. An aerial view would show that these two houses, and their counterparts on the opposite side of the block, extended back the full distance of their property, their backs directly touching. This, along with the two houses behind the Stark mansion itself, made up a square within the center of the block. And the open area between the back of the Stark mansion and the two houses opposite was a private plaza, with a landscaped garden.
Stark owned all seven houses, owned them in a block, and joined them so that their interiors were entirely linked to form one huge mansion, a bastion of complete privacy within the heart of the city.
Only portions of this vast building complex were used for living purposes—although each Avenger had his own apartment of rooms—for much of the remainder was taken up with labs, training areas, assembly rooms, and shops. Beneath the entire structure was an immense underground garage.
It was to the garage that Steve Rogers, back in a clean uniform, went now. The exit of the garage was not on the street on which the mansion fronted but on the street on the opposite side of the block, the next street north. Rogers could have instructed the girl to come to one of the addresses on that street, but he had sensed her reluctance to come into his own sanctum sanctorum. She had her own reasons for wanting to meet him elsewhere. He hoped he was wrong about what those reasons might be, but he had not wanted to scare her off. He had let her choose the place.
He stepped out of the elevator into a vast open area broken only by supporting columns and blocks of fluorescent lights, under which the hoods and bodies of many cars and vehicles gleamed darkly. Tonight he wanted something inconspicuous. He chose the Volkswagen.
The aluminum Buick V-6 engine started immediately, its ingenious muffler system accurately duplicating the sounds of a VW air-cooled flat-4. A special chain that ran uselessly between the fan and two dummy pulleys even re-created the distinctive sounds of the VW timing chain. He left the knob controlling the Paxton supercharger out; he wouldn’t need that extra performance boost just yet. The 176 horsepower of the hot-tuned V6 would be enough, even for the specially modified and heavier chassis of the bullet-proofed VW. He moved his shield to the back seat, where it could not slide into his legs, and engaged the clutch. The car moved easily out across the open floor, and up the ramp, where the outside door, responding to the signal from the car’s dash, was already up. Then he was turning east and heading crosstown.
There was no sign of pursuit, but just to be careful, he did not head directly for his destination. Instead he swung down into the midtown area, cutting through lights just turning yellow, watching for signs of anyone following, either directly on his tail, or a block away on the parallel. It was 9:45 when he turned north of First Avenue at 38th Street and, swinging into an outside lane to avoid the tunnel under 42nd Street drew up beside the U.N. rotunda.
There were only a few other cars parked here at this hour, most of them carrying the diplomatic licenses of the various legations located nearby. He drew the VW into the curb and parked it, retrieving his shield from the back seat. It was a replacement shield for the one he’d lost in the cave-in; he always kept spares.
When he entered the parklike plaza, the street lights from the avenue cast long shadows from the trees and plantings. At first he didn’t see her. There she stood, her full figure separating itself from the shrouded shadows of a bench.
“Captain America?” she called softly.
He walked toward her, the sound of his boots on the hard concrete loud in his own ears.
When he was closer, he could see full dark-blonde hair framing her face which itself remained shadowed. Light glinted from the lenses of her glasses. She was wearing a tailored business suit, and carrying a small purse.
“Captain America?” She smiled. “I’m Robin.” She clutched her purse tighter, and suddenly a vapor shot out of it, surrounding him in a mist.
“You were easy,” she said, as he started to fall.
Then, before she could regain her guard, he had rolled to the side, and was rising from his crouch. His shield held high on his left arm, his right hand knocked the purse from her grasp. It hit the pavement and slid away from her clutching fingers.
Then Randolph and Marcus were on his back.
Marcus was grunting as he swung his sap. “I toldja it wouldn’t be that easy!”
“Ahhh—!”
Captain America pivoted, suddenly slippery as an eel. This was his game they were playing now—no gas, no sudden explosions, just a close rough-and-tumble. He swung his fist at the blond man, catching him high on the jaw, and driving him back to the pavement. But before he could follow up the blow, the other one was on his back again. He ducked, throwing the man over his shoulders, pitching him into the other, who was starting to rise. “When’ll you guys learn not to hit a man when his back’s turned?” he grunted, gathering the nearest in his fist, and chopping him with a series of hard, fast rights.
“Is this it?” he asked. “Are you guys all they sent?” He knocked their heads together and dropped them to the ground, unconscious. “It hardly seems worth coming out on a cold night for.”
“Maybe this will,” he heard the girl mutter. But he hadn’t time to react. The heel of her shoe caught him at the base of his skull, at the neck. He dropped as though poleaxed.
“Good job, guys.” The girl spoke in derision as she looked down on the unconscious bodies of her two helpers. “Maybe I should just leave you here for the cops. Not likely. That’d be doing them a favor.”
Lifting her short skirt higher on her thighs, she ran awkwardly out of the plaza to a dark Continental. “Starling!” She rapped on the rear side window. “Hey! You’ve gotta help me.”
Starling pressed a button and rolled his window down. “What is it?”
“Come on. I got three guys out cold back there. If you think I can handle them all by myself…”
With Starling’s help, the two thugs, looking much worse for the wear, were dumped in the back seat, Captain America between them. Starling opened the glove compartment and removed a small black case. From it he took a loaded hypodermic. With a knife, he slashed the arm of Captain America’s uniform, baring his skin.
Then he gave him the injection. “That should keep him cold for six hours,” he told the girl. “And he won’t be feeling like much for the next eighteen.”
Robin slid into the front seat next to him and he started the big car, moving it out onto the one-way avenue, heading uptown.
They had turned onto the FDR Drive, heading downtown, when Randolph woke up. He announced this fact to the others in the car by vomiting on the floor.
“What a stink,” the girl said. “Clean it up!”
“So stop the car for a minute and I’ll be better,” he groaned. But Starling didn’t, and Randolph had to be content with using tissues while Robin sneered at him about his manliness, or his lack thereof. And Randolph, unable to put up with this kind of criticism, demonstrated his manliness by taking his frustrations brutally out on the unconscious form of Captain America.
Somewhat later that evening, after ticketing an illegally parked Volkswagen, a policeman discovered a small black ladies’ purse in the United Nation Plaza. When he opened it, a gas bomb exploded in his face, leaving him a huddled form on the cold concrete.
* It all happened in Tales of Suspense #’s 75, 76, 77, March, April, May, 1966, and #85, January 1967.—Reminiscent Stan
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