CHAPTER 10
UNMASKED!
When the black Continental drew up inside the Raven’s garage, Starling and Robin watched while Randolph and Marcus hauled Captain America’s limp body from the car. They pulled him out feet first, his back and shoulders scraping over the car’s door sill, his head snapping back against the concrete floor with an ominous thunk.
“Careful, you fools,” Robin said. “The Eagle wants him captured—not killed. Not yet, anyway.”
Raven stared down at the costumed figure lying on his floor. Captain America’s body looked even bigger in this odd position. “I don’t get it,” he complained. “Why take him alive? Why not just deliver a clean hit? And if we gotta keep him in storage, why here?”
Starling smiled. “I’m afraid that if the Eagle wanted you to know, he’d have informed you.”
“Hah! I’m betting you don’t know either, fella.”
“Starling! Raven!” It was Robin. “Please. This is no time for pettiness.”
“Speaking of time,” said Starling, glancing at his chromium-steel wrist chronometer, “where’s Sparrow? He’s overdue.”
Marcus had gone over near the doors. “Hey, somebody’s poking around out there.” His gun was in his hand as he spoke.
“Put the gun away, idiot,” Raven snorted. “You’re paid to follow instructions—not to think.” He unbolted the doors, and inched one open. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I’m sorry to be late,” Sparrow said apologetically, as he pushed in through the narrow gap. “I’m not familiar with the subways in Brooklyn.”
“What could be easier?” Raven asked. “The 4th Avenue line runs right up there along Fourth Avenue. You’re two blocks away.”
“I got on the wrong train when I changed. The—um—West End Line, I believe.”
Raven shook his head. It was plain he had little respect for the fussy and incapable Sparrow. “Well, we’re all here, anyway. I mean, all of us except the boss.”
“I’ve never seen the Eagle,” Robin spoke up. “When am I going to meet him?”
“None of us have,” Sparrow replied in a kindly tone which he seemed to reserve for the girl. “His dealings with all of us have been over the phone. I have worked for him more years than the rest of you put together, and I’ve never met him. We are hardly his only um—employees. We simply represent the lieutenants for this operation.”
“Well, what about this operation?” Starling asked. “It’s finished, isn’t it?”
“Ah, that’s one of the things we have to discuss,” Sparrow said, shaking his head. “But first, there is the matter of our energetic friend on the floor.”
“What about him?” Raven asked. He drew the back of his hand over his stubbled jowls, then ran his fingers through his dirty blond hair. “Why are we holding him? And why here?”
“It bothers you?” Sparrow asked.
“It sure does. I’ve heard about this guy. He causes trouble. There are plenty who’d pay us good money to see him dead, and if it was somebody else holding him, I’d ante something into the pot myself, just on general principles. Here he is, lying right here on the floor, in the midst of a high-level meeting like this. It’s ridiculous! Besides, this is my garage.”
“Relax,” ‘Starling said. “He’s full of juice. Nothing can go wrong.”
“That’s what you said when you dropped that dynamite on him.”
“Gentlemen, please!” Sparrow held his hands aloft, summoning their attention. “The Eagle’s reasons for wanting to keep Captain America our hostage are, I am sure, reasonable and sufficient. We needn’t question them. However, I am aware that one of his reasons is that Captain America is highly valued by the law enforcement agencies of this country, and would provide an excellent exchange hostage, should any one of us—ah—become enmeshed in the traps of the law.
“As to your fear, Raven, I believe it is groundless. The ‘juice’ to which Starling refers, should be quite effective in rendering Captain America totally helpless.”
“Well, where’m I gonna put him?”
“I suggest we take him down to your apartment, and tie him to a chair.”
When Captain America regained consciousness, it was not all at once.
First there was a heavy, sluggish, dreamy quality to his awareness. It was vaguely as he remembered it when a dentist had given him gas. He had not gone completely under, but had become somewhat removed from the reality of what the dentist was doing to his teeth.
Just so—a man was hitting him. He couldn’t be sure if more than one man was hitting him, because the blows seemed unconnected one to another, and the drone of the man’s curses added up to nothing. He felt no personal animosity toward the man who was hitting him. He registered the blows to his ribs, his kidneys, his stomach, without feeling them. There was no pain, only a sort of irregular, ceaseless jarring.
He didn’t try to reason it out; that part of his brain was dead. He only experienced. He drifted, the jars and blows turbulences in the dreamlike current that carried him.
But gradually the shock, if not the pain of the body blows, began to cut through the mist of his mind. Like touches of ice in a steam bath, they restored contrast and, with that, greater consciousness.
He was propped in a sitting position, between two other bodies; occasionally he would feel the weight of one against him pushing him into the other, as they all swayed. There was a sour, sickly odor, although chill wind blasted against him. The man on his right was hitting him, steadily if neither regularly nor methodically. The other man seemed to be holding him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t open his eyes. His body felt paralyzed. From the sounds that filtered through his consciousness, be decided they were in a car.
Someone else—a female voice—said something sharp.
The blows ceased. Without them, he lost some of his impetus toward wakefulness, but did not lose consciousness entirely. Instead, he drifted back into the deeper waters, coming near the surface only when the car’s direction or its speed would abruptly change. Even when the road surface became suddenly rougher he was roused only momentarily. The outside stimuli which reached him were incapable of exciting him.
Then the car had stopped. Without warning; hands roughly seized him, gripping his ankles and pulling them. He felt his body slip, flopping him flat on his back on the car seat, and then his ankles were jerked impatiently as he was dragged from the car. For a moment he was falling, free. Then his head struck the pavement.
The drug Starling had used on Captain America was a narco-depressant, a synthetic originally developed for use on drug addicts. Unfortunately, its side effects made it unpopular for this use, and it languished for several years until rediscovered by the Russian KGB for use not unlike that to which Starling had put it.
There was no particular secret about the drug, although it was now being used under several different trade names, and not only SHIELD, but various national agencies in the U.S. employed it upon occasion. It was inevitable that it would find its way into criminal hands; most of the world’s drug discoveries do, often even before any public announcement or release.
There was only one objection to using the drug on Captain America; it didn’t really work.
The drug normally enters the brain through the bloodstream, and attacks the nerve centers at the top of the spinal cord and the base of the brain. Its properties are largely anesthetic, but it also acts as a general depressant, reducing capillary circulation throughout the body, and most particularly in the brain.
But Captain America possessed an altered body. In his strengthened body, the influx of many drugs is treated much as would be the unwarranted entrance of any foreign object; antibodies are formed which attack and destroy the foreign object—in this case, the drug.
This was not done instantly. A massive dose had been injected directly into his bloodstream. He was already unconscious. Some of the drug was able to act upon him, unimpaired. It would be a matter of time—perhaps more than an hour—before the drug would be cleared from his bloodstream. It would be longer before all its effects had worn off. And they would not all disappear simultaneously. Repeated brain concussions from blows to the cranium would have their own effects as well. There was the possibility of blood clots forming in brain tissues. In a normal man, a head blow sufficient to cause unconsciousness can leave the victim with migraine headaches, dizzy spells and occluded vision, or minor sight difficulties, for days afterwards. It was fortunate for Captain America that he was no longer a “normal” man.
His hearing returned first, and imperfectly. There was a buzzing to every sound he heard, like distortion in a sound system, a radio not properly tuned. Voices cut and rasped, their meanings elusive.
Then bodily sensation. He was sitting again, in a straight chair. Tight bands—ropes, he guessed—held his hands behind the chair’s back. The stiff chair back cut into the insides of his arms. His hands had very little feeling.
More ropes held his legs to the chair legs, and bound his thighs to the seat. He was thoroughly trussed up.
He didn’t try to move or struggle. He didn’t lift his chin from his chest. Even his breathing didn’t quicken.
He knew he was in the den of thieves. It seemed important for the time being to lie doggo, to wait and listen.
“I don’t like it,” Starling was saying. “Of all of you, only I am familiar with the actual physical operation. Only I have seen the vaults, worked in the tunnels. And we don’t know how changed they are now. For instance, will the cart still go through?”
Raven laughed. “You’re forgetting, the cart was in your storeroom. It’s buried now. And if it isn’t, they’ve probably taken it out. We can’t count on it. We’ll have to take more in.”
“I don’t know,” Robin’s softer voice came. “I’m newest on this operation. But it seems to me that Starling has a point. All we know is that the main tunnel between the elevator and the vault is clear—for men to get through, anyway. We don’t know what conditions are like down there. We’ve already gotten a haul that anyone else would be satisfied with.”
“Not just anyone!” Sparrow’s voice, surprisingly crisp, cut through the conversation. “You’re overlooking something. This is not our operation. These are not our plans. And you are not totally aware of my own role in the situation. In any case, the Eagle has made these plans, and cast his vote. I need not remind you, his is the decisive, the only vote. So this argument is really quite pointless. We had best get onto the mechanics of it. We’ll need more trucks. Raven, that’s your department. Starling, you’ll round up your work crew. We’ll need more men. I want a constant stream of men loading and unloading—a steady flow to the trucks. I’ll take care of the power cut.”
“Wait a minute…” Starling said.
“What about me?” Robin interrupted.
Sparrow smiled at her. “You’ll stay here to keep the home fires burning, my dear. And, incidentally, to guard our captive, here.”
She pouted. “That doesn’t seem very important.”
“You’ll also be our message center. We’ll need someone to coordinate things, someone we can all get through to.”
“Why, Sparrow, I didn’t think you had so much to you,” Raven said with delight. “You’ve positively taken charge!” He laughed.
“What’s got into you?” Starling asked, testily.
“It’s a nice split, boys. Had you forgotten? Sixty per cent of the net to the Eagle; ten to each of the rest of us. Ten per cent of eight-hundred thousand; that’s only eighty thousand. But have you tried working out ten per cent of over twelve billion? People, you’re looking at billionaires! That’s worth a few chuckles, ain’t it?”
“What will you do with your share, Raven?” Robin asked curiously.
“I figure on buying me an island in the South Pacific,” he said happily.
“Maybe they’ll use it to test a new bomb on,” Starling rejoined.
“Enough,” Sparrow said, his thin voice again cutting through the dissension. “That’s quite enough. We have one other item of business yet to attend to.”
Rogers heard footsteps scuffing across a thick carpet, and then Sparrow’s voice again, almost directly over him.
His ears still buzzed, but he fought to catch the elusive familiarity of the man’s tone. He wished he dared open his eyes.
“This is a moment which I, personally, have long awaited,” Sparrow said, his voice rising in triumph. “The unmasking of Captain America!”
Then, his nails scraping along Rogers’ face, Sparrow dug his fingers under his cowl, and ripped it back. Rogers felt air strike his exposed cheeks and forehead. Then fingers clutched his blond hair and pulled his head back. “Behold!” Sparrow said.
Raven was first to speak. “Well, I dunno about you, Sparrow, but it rings no bells with me. I never seen him before.”
Starling agreed. “His face means nothing to me.”
“He could be anybody,” said Robin. “What good does this do?”
Sparrow let Rogers’ head fall back to his chest, and his voice when he spoke was defeated. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I always wondered. I felt, if these guys—these costumed heroes—wore masks, it must mean something.”
“Captain America was missing for twenty years,” Starling said. “That could mean the first one died, and this one took his place. He looks awfully young.”
“Perhaps. It doesn’t really matter. Let’s get going.”
The carpet muffled their footsteps, but when it sounded as though they had all left, Captain America opened one eye, and peered upward—straight into the eyes of the young woman who called herself Robin.
Her open-handed slap threw his head back on his shoulders. He opened both eyes and stared at her. She stared back, angrily. He noted with interest that her eyes were brown at the pupil, but shaded into blue at the rim of the iris. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and her hair fell part-way across her face. She was quite beautiful, in a not quite sane sort of way.
“So you’re awake?” She made it an accusation. “So much for Starling’s much-vaunted injections.”
“You never did get a chance to tell me what it was you’d called me about,” Rogers said. “Why not take the opportunity?”
In reply she slapped him again. Now both sides of his face stung.
“Don’t talk to me,” she told him. “Don’t say a word. I’d love to have an excuse to shut you up, permanently.”
She reached behind her for the gun lying on a small end table. “You were supposed to be no trouble at all. ‘Out for six hours,’ that slimy rat said. Sure! And now I’ve got to keep a double eye on you while I tend to the rest of my business.”
“Last chance,” Rogers said, his voice stony. “Replay the scene. You were just an agent for SHIELD who penetrated this operation, and had to go along with it in front of the others. Now, of course, you’re free. You can tell me all the details, and set me loose. That’s your chance—to play it that way.”
She stared mockingly at him. “And the other way?”
“They’ve abolished the death sentence in this state, but you can still get thirty years to life as an accessory to murder.”
“I haven’t killed you—yet.”
“I said accessory. Your friend, the Starling, has killed at least three men so far. One of them he shot in cold blood.” He gave her a grim smile. “You ever been in a women’s penitentiary? It’s not the most attractive place in the world. You think men can be tough? Try some of those sadistic matrons—and your cell mates; they can give you a real rough time of it. And there’s no escape.”
She stared at him broodingly, saying nothing. Her face seemed whiter.
“I’m offering you an out,” he said quietly. “It’s the best you’ll get.”
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