Tuesday, July 6, 2021

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE GREAT GOLD STEAL "Chapter 2: Who is Captain America?"

CHAPTER 2
WHO IS CAPTAIN AMERICA?
Steve Rogers turned the piece of metal over slowly. He had held it for some minutes now, and it already felt warm from the heat of his hand. It was a dull yellow, and it felt as heavy as lead. Embossed on the smooth side was a seal—the seal of the United States. He turned it over again.

This side was far more brilliant, but rough-textured, the marks of a hacksaw still fresh upon it.

Gold. It was a piece of gold, measuring perhaps three inches square, and less than a half-an-inch thick.

And worth well over one hundred dollars.

Rogers knew what it was, and he knew where it must have come from. But how?

He’d engaged the full cooperation of the police, and, when the dead man’s body had been searched, they’d found the chunk of gold. That was not all they’d found, of course.

The dead man’s back had been carved cleanly open by a knife so thin and razor-sharp that it had torn neither cloth nor flesh. And so hot that it had instantly cauterized the wound. A laser beam—modern science’s answer to Buck Rogers’ heat rays. It tallied with the girl’s description. A ruby-red beam of congruent light, so tightly focused that it can be used to cut through diamonds. Silent and, if properly engineered for a portable unit, quite efficient.

This was clearly not a run-of-the-mill murder.

The man had carried no identification. Rogers had wanted to do a lab job on the clothing himself, but the police had their way, and would even now be going over every particle of grime, grease and dirt imbedded in the clothes, hair, skin, even under the finger nails. Their job would be a thorough one, and they would miss nothing. An autopsy would even reveal the dead man’s last meal, if he’d bad one within the last four hours. Rogers had to admit that although he had the equipment, he had neither the training nor the time for the sort of exhaustive scientific detective job the boys downtown would be performing.

Instead, he had a more immediate job; the piece of gold.

The United States seal is stamped onto every bar of gold owned by the United States, along with a serial number. When, in the course of balance-of-payments debts, the U.S. transfers its gold to another power, it first erases its seal. It is theoretically impossible for any unauthorized person to possess a gold ingot with the U.S. seal.

Rogers knew this. For many years he had acted as an agent for the United States government. He had undergone special training by the FBI and, later, by U.S. Army Intelligence, during World War II, a time when a great deal of gold was being shipped out of Europe, and into safe-keeping in U.S. depositories. Gold is the monetary base of the world. Its movements are watched more carefully by the agents of the world powers than those of any other single commodity.

And now a strange, squat, brute-featured man had been seeking Captain America—with a piece of gold, obviously cut from a bar of United States gold.

Well, his mission, whatever it had been, had not been entirely in vain. He had found Captain America.

Rogers had already stripped off his outer clothing, and changed into his colorful Captain America uniform. As usual, when within the town-house mansion in which he now lived, he kept the cowl thrown back on his shoulders. The mask annoyed him, and there were times when he wondered why he bothered with it at all. And at other times he wondered why he even wore the uniform.

And yet he knew. It was not so much that he needed to conceal his identity these days, because for all intents and purposes he had no other identity. Steve Rogers was officially dead, and had been for almost twenty years. Captain America was his identity. It was only when he donned the tight-fitting blue uniform with its shield chest-emblem, the red snug-fitting boots, and the heavy, yet pressure-sensitive red-leather gauntlets, that he began to feel real—a complete human being.

Now he reached back and pulled up the cowl, fitting the snug hood over his head, bringing the mask down over the upper half of his face.

His expression seemed to change then. His gaze seemed to become more impelling, his visage more stern. His back straightened, and he seemed to gain additional height. No longer just another man among many, now he was Captain America!

Steve Rogers—Captain America—was a man out of his own time. Some times the memories would come—as they had earlier this day when there were no diversions and no escapes left—but they were painful memories, and not at all the memories of normal men.

Captain America was not, in any sense of the word, a normal man.

Steve Rogers was born on July 9, 1917.

His was a difficult birth and, soon after, his mother had died, leaving him to the care of his father and his seven-year-old brother.

His father was killed in the war, the next year.

Steve and his brother spent the next ten years with their aunt and uncle, who raised them as though they were their own children.

These were not easy years for Steve Rogers. His older brother, Alan, was, at eighteen, a superbly muscled youth who had excelled at sports and athletic events throughout his childhood. Ruggedly handsome, he was popular throughout high school, being twice class president.

Steve was almost as tall as Alan, but thin, gangling, a weak, nervous child who hid from failure in books, in the vicarious thrills of the adventures of other heroes in other times and lands.

Twice during his childhood, Steve suffered tuberculosis, and spent a year confined to his bed. There were no medicines then that would help; doctors could only advise complete rest. The second time, four years after the first, when he was ten, he was not expected to live.

Steve was bitterly jealous of his older brother, and yet envious and admiring. He idolized Alan, and prized the stories of Alan’s exploits he heard from all who knew him.

Yet he was forever in Alan’s shadow, always bearing well-meaning friends saying, “Now, if only you were more like your brother…”

Even Uncle Charlie had said it. Uncle Charlie was a testy man, who sometimes resented being saddled with his sister’s kids. That Steve! What he cost in doctors’ bills alone would raise a normal family.

Then came the panic of 1929—the great stock-market crash that foreshadowed the Depression. Uncle Charlie had been a heavy investor. He was wiped out, broke.

The brothers were separated then and, at the age of twelve, Steve was sent to live in a city-run orphanage.

It was a cruel time and a cruel place. He became the butt of endless jokes, jokes designed to hurt and torment him. He wore glasses now, and was perennially addressed as “Hey, four-eyes!”—sometimes even by the adults who supervised the place.

It was inevitable that he would retreat further into the world of books, away from cruel reality. But Steve Rogers had his pride. He found himself entering his studies as avidly as he had his books of fantasies. And his wide reading paid additional dividends in his larger vocabulary and more sophisticated grasp of subjects. When he graduated from high school, he was an honor student.

During the 1930s, in the midst of the worst depression this country had ever known, college enrollment climbed higher than it had ever been before.

There were no jobs. What else could young men and women do? They stayed in school, and prayed that, by graduation, things would be better.

Steve, with the aid of a state scholarship, went to Columbia, where he studied law. He had read the handwriting on the wall. With Roosevelt’s leadership, the government was moving increasingly into the control of business. While the Justice Department watched zealously for evidences of fraudulent business practices, the Treasury was extending business taxes everywhere. New laws were being passed every day regulating some aspect of business. Business was the demon, the scapegoat, blamed for the horrors of the Depression, and ever more tightly scrutinized and regulated.

Organized crime was growing too. With the death of prohibition, and the end of a lucrative trade in bootlegging organized crime had moved into other prohibited areas—gambling, narcotics, prostitution. Crime—all crime—was on the increase, as rackets men operating loan-shark operations bled jobless men white, and then drove them into petty crime for money to feed their families and repay the sharks. It was a time of desperation, and of lawlessness.

Rogers could see it very clearly. The legal profession was going to be an increasingly important and valuable career.

Then it was 1940, and Hitler’s armies were moving into Poland, France, and the other middle-European countries, and a second world war was starting.

We were not yet at war, yet we were sending millions of dollars’ worth of food and merchandise to beleaguered England, and pressure was mounting for America to declare war on Hitler.

Steve Rogers went to his local draft board and tried to enlist.

They almost laughed him out.

A doctor explained it to him, gently.

“Son, you’ve got a fine mind, and you’re heading for a degree in law. Stick with it. Don’t try for glory. We may never go to war. But if we do, we need strong, healthy men. With your medical history—forget it.”

A recruiting sergeant added, kindly, “This country needs more than fighting men. It needs brains, to keep it running. Make good with what you’ve got.”

And Steve Rogers went quietly home again. But he was not forgotten.

The American sympathizers with Hitler were forming secret bunds, and Black Shirt societies. They created acts of terror, sabotaging munitions plants and arsenals, planting mines aboard ships with relief material destined for England, and launched campaigns of anti-semitism in an attempt to divide our nation and heighten its prejudices.

And in high places, the certainty of war was obvious. Roosevelt held secret meetings with Churchill, assuring him of his support, and an old man named Albert Einstein came forward to suggest a project which was to be called The Manhattan Project, an attempt to create an atomic bomb.

Other secret projects were set up, among them, Operation Rebirth.

Operation Rebirth had several goals, but chief among them was that of rebuilding war-torn bodies into once-more healthy specimens.

The project was headed by the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Erskine. His work with the endocrine system, and chemical body control, was well beyond that of his contemporaries. Only he, of all his colleagues, had fathomed the secrets of the Swiss Dr. Hoffman’s 1938 discovery—the mind-controlling LSD-25.

Now he was ready for a human volunteer; a man with a wasted or damaged body, upon which he could test the rejuvenatory powers of his chemicals.

Steve Rogers was one of twenty men approached quietly and efficiently by the FBI for this purpose. He had proven his patriotism in his attempt to enlist in the Army. His body, thin, gangling, scrawny and weak at twenty-four, would make a perfect test case.

The two men wore wide-lapel trench coats, belted at the waist, and wide-brimmed hats. They stood at the door of Steve’s boarding-house room, waiting for him to invite them in. When he didn’t, only staring at them wordlessly, one of the men tugged at his ear lobe and then reached into his breast pocket with his other hand. He pulled out a leather folder and flipped it open. It revealed a metal shield and a photographic ID card.

“FBI,” he said. “Can we talk with you, Rogers?” He nodded inside the room.

Steve stepped back, and they followed him in. He closed and locked the door, then turned to face them. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I can’t offer you a seat unless you want to use my bed. May I see that identification again, please? And,” he nodded at the other man, “yours? I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look.”

The first man tugged his ear again, then passed over his folder. The second man reached into his coat pocket and brought out his.

Rogers read each one carefully, compared the men with their pictures, and then quietly handed the folders back. “All right,” he said. “I’m prepared to believe that you’re Richard W. Brown and Michael McInerney, and that you work for the FBI. What do you want to talk to me about?”

Brown fingered his ear again. “You tried to enlist a few months ago.”

“That’s right. I was turned down—4F.”

“How would you like to serve your country anyhow?”

“How? By joining the Justice Department? I haven’t got my law degree yet.”

“It’s not essential. No, this would be something else entirely. I can’t tell you anything about it until after you accept except that you’ll be something of a guinea pig—and stand a chance of dying.”

“Whew! That doesn’t sound exactly rewarding. I take it there’s more to it than that? Something on the plus side?”

“Yes, it could be quite rewarding for you. If it’s successful, that is. I can’t make any guarantees at all. All I can tell you is that you’d be serving your country in a way more important than if you sacrificed your life on the battlefield—win, lose or draw.”

“What about my career? My degree?”

“For the time being that would be interrupted. However, you would receive special training, at government expense. You’ll be working for the government. That would become your career.”

Rogers stared around him at the dingy, cramped cubicle he called home. “Well, it can’t be much worse than a couple more years of this,” he said thoughtfully. “How about my books?”

“You can bring a few of them, that’s all,” McInerney said, speaking for the first time. His voice sounded deeper than Rogers had expected.

“Do I get a chance to pack?”

Brown smiled. “Take your time. We’ll be back in an hour.”

They took him in their car, a deep-maroon Hudson sedan, out across the Queensborough Bridge, east into sparsely populated Queens. After more than an hour of driving, they turned up a rutted road leading to a farmhouse.

They didn’t stop in front of the house, but continued around back of it, toward the barn. Suddenly, wide doors swung open in the side of the barn and, as the car drove past them, into the barn, Steve had a glimpse of men in army uniforms hastily pulling the doors shut.

This was a barn unlike any barn he’d ever heard of. The floor was concrete, and divided into parking spaces. The Hudson pulled in next to two Fords, painted olive-drab. Beyond, an open elevator ascended to the floor above and out of sight.

Uniformed men, carrying rifles, materialized at each side of the car. Brown and McInerney presented their credentials again, and Brown spoke in a low tone, gesturing toward the back of the car and Rogers.

The uniformed men nodded, and turned away. Brown and McInerney opened the front doors of the car and started to climb out.

Steve reached for his own door handle, and then stopped, nonplussed.

There were no inside handles on the back doors!

McInerney let him out from the outside, however, and soon he was joining them in the elevator.

The second floor was different again. Completely furnished with modern hospital fittings, smelling even of hospital smells, it seemed totally out of place, here in a barn.

But it was here, on this second floor, that Steve was to live for the next week.

The tests they gave him made his previous Army physical seem like play. They took samples of nearly every part of his body. There were blood tests, skin scrapings, even a spinal tap, for which he was, mercifully, fully unconscious. They fitted electrodes to his shaven skull, and ran elaborate electro-encephalographic tests. There was one whole day when he ate only a strange exotic-tasting purple paste—and on the next day, nothing at all, during which he was subjected to a battery of X-ray shots.

There was no use asking what it was all about. Most of the people who conducted the tests—pretty nurses and serious-faced young doctors—quite cheerfully admitted that they had no idea themselves of the purpose to which these tests would be put. They did admit, however, that Steve was not the only one undergoing them. And once he had a glimpse of a man swathed in bandages who, he was told, had been badly burned.

Then, exactly a week after he had been brought to the place, he was taken away again. Once again he climbed into the red Hudson with Brown and McInerney, but this time there was someone else sharing the back seat.

He was a handsome, graying man, wearing the uniform of a brigadier general. Brown introduced him. “Rogers, this is General Anderson. He’s in charge of the project, and he’ll tell you something of what you’re in for.”

Steve Rogers felt like a stray mongrel in his corner of the car. They were shunting him back and forth, treating him like a laboratory hamster. What had he let himself in for?

The general began to tell him.
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Monday, July 5, 2021

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE GREAT GOLD STEAL "Chapter 1: Death by Laser!"

Chapter 1
Death by Laser
In Lower Manhattan there squats a heavy gray building. Although over a dozen stories tall, it seems hemmed in by the tall skyscrapers that surround it.

This is New York City’s financial district. Across the narrow street downtown from the gray building is the beautiful Chase Manhattan Plaza—headquarters for one of the world’s largest commercial banks. A little to the east is Bankers Trust. A new building is going up on the southwest, which will also house a bank, and yet another is rising directly north. All of these buildings are or will be giants, and they tower high over the heavy gray building, cutting it off from sunshine and the sky.

But this forbidding structure dominates them all.

A dark gray Continental swung east off Broadway, on Liberty Street. It was 7:30 p.m., and the color was already gone from the chill fall air. Cabs still cruised the narrow, canyon-like streets, but most of the office workers had left for the night. The tall, thin man with the bald head threaded his Continental effortlessly through the thinning traffic, swinging left again into Liberty Place, a gloomy alley-like street only a block long. A no-parking sign stood at the curb, but the bald-headed man gave a negligent twist to his wrist and, aided by power steering, bumped his big car up over the curb, and to rest, half blocking the sidewalk. There was only scant room for other cars to slip past, but it didn’t appear to concern the man. There was little traffic on this neglected street, anyhow.

The man remained seated behind the wheel for several moments, apparently lost in thought. Passersby, what few there were on this early night, would have given him only a token glance. Sitting in the luxurious car, wearing a handsome dark topcoat and a black Homburg, the tall thin man appeared obviously a part of his surroundings; a banker perhaps, certainly a financier.

A smile tugged at his lips. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a gold cigarette case. It held extra-long filter cigarettes. As he removed it, something else fell into his lap, a money clip, a few bills folded into it.

He started to return the money to his pocket and then, instead, separated a bill and stared at it thoughtfully.

It was a single dollar bill, one of the new ones. These did not say “Silver Certificate” on them; they were not backed by silver.

“Only by promises…” the man murmured to himself. “And we’ll see about those.”

The bill was a Federal Reserve Note, Series 1963 A. To the left of the portrait of George Washington was a seal, with the large letter “B” in its center. “Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York,” it said.

One block further east was Nassau Street. On the other side of Nassau sat the gloomy gray building, its sides bounded by Liberty Street, Nassau Street, Maiden Lane, and William Street. Its walls were great blocks of sooty granite. Its windows were heavily barred.

“B”.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York. 44 Maiden Lane. The bank that dominates all the banking in New York City, financial capital of the world.

The tall, bald man held the dollar bill for a few silent moments, his lips pursed, his thin fingers precise and motionless. Then he shrugged, returned the money to his pocket, and took out a cigarette.

He sat a few moments more, smoking the cigarette, and then glanced at his watch. 7:45p.m.

Pulling the coat tighter and buttoning it, he eased open the door and stepped out. Pausing only to lock the car, he moved quickly down the street to the middle of the short block.

This was a neglected street, bypassed by the expansion of the financial district, beckoning no new construction. The buildings here were old commercial buildings—lofts and stores, a lunch counter, a stationery store, a job printer, a messenger service. The storefronts were grimy, and looked forlorn. The bald-headed man couldn’t have cared less.

He turned between two commercial entrances and pushed open the grime-encrusted door of a little-used hallway. One faint twenty-watt bulb dangled on a frayed cord from the ceiling. Rubbish lurked in the corners.

Stairs led upward to the right; instead he ducked to the left, under them. He groped for a minute, then clicked on another light. This one showed stairs leading down. They were wooden, covered with metal cleats, and the man made his way down slowly and carefully.

When he reached the basement, he pushed his way into the dim shadows and around. cans piled high with junk and refuse. If the dust on the handles was any indication, these cans had not been emptied since the outbreak of World War II.

Shelves cluttered with miscellaneous junk leaned against the basement walls, and the man walked up to them, and reached under a low one.

A thin, high-pitched whine began and, as though on newly oiled casters, the entire section of shelves rotated smoothly out from the wall.

He reached through the opening now revealed and flicked another switch. Immediately the light at the stairs went out, and a new one beyond came on. He moved quickly through the concealed doorway, and the shelves, servo-mechs whining again, slid back into place.

Quite another sort of man was cautiously easing out of a dark subway tunnel onto a station platform.

He was short, thick-bodied, the muscles standing out on his exposed neck and forearms. The passengers standing and waiting on the subway platform paid no attention to him. He was wearing coveralls, a faded blue denim, and looked not unlike a track worker, one of those men who perennially rove the subway tunnels under the great city looking for and making necessary track repairs.

His hair was dark and grizzled with gray specks. It came low on his brow and, combined with the bushy eyebrows just below, gave him a simian look—the look of a man of low intelligence, but of a certain animal craft and cunning.

Soon a train was rumbling out of the tunnel, its brakes screeching in tortured protest as it came to a halt. The doors slid pneumatically open, and the simian-looking man boarded the train with the other waiting passengers.

The train became an express only a few stops further uptown, and it was only a matter of some ten or fifteen jolting minutes before it was stopping in the 86th Street station.

The short, heavy-set man rose and, shouldering his way past two girls at the door, stepped hastily off the train. The two girls stared past him in indignation. “Did you see that?” one of them said to the other. She fingered her nose. “I wonder when the last time was, he took a bath.”

“People like that they shouldn’t let onto these trains,” the other girl agreed. The doors slapped shut, and the train started up again. Soon the pillars of the station were a blur, and the dark thick man gone from sight.

When he climbed to the street, the man turned west. He walked in short, pumping strides, his stubby legs covering distance within an amazingly short time. The dark late-model Ford sedan, with only its parking lights on, had no trouble pacing him.

There were two men in the car. They were both young, and looked younger. Each was crewcut, each wore impeccable Ivy League suits, dark and a little conservative for present fashion. One man was a sandy blond; the other had dark hair. That was about the only visible distinction. Both were freshly shaved—and as a matter of fact, the odor of after-shave lotion still lingered within the closed confines of the car. They looked like assistant junior executives, on their way up.

The short man in the coveralls turned south on Madison Avenue, which is one-way for vehicles heading uptown. The driver of the Ford cursed for a moment.

“Don’t sweat it,” the other said. “We know where he’s going. He has to be.”

“Right.,

The Ford went a block further west, to Central Park and Fifth Avenue, a one-way street downtown. The light was just turning red, but Dark Hair cut the corner and jabbed the accelerator viciously, and the car skinned through the light.

Ahead, the lights, all timed, began turning green just before the Ford reached each intersection.

They didn’t go far, but cut left again on a cross street.

“Blasted one-way streets,” Dark Hair muttered.

“Ease off. We’ve got plenty of time,” Sandy Hair answered. “He’s on foot, remember?”

“Yeah, but these streets—these lights! It’s enough to drive ya batty. I gotta go all the way around three sides of the square before I can get there, and meantime—here we sit!”

The light turned green, and the Ford turned left again, up Madison Avenue.

The light at the next block was red and, just as they pulled up to it, Sandy Hair said, “Hey! There he is!”

The short, simian man was just turning the corner ahead of them.

Dark Hair shifted his foot from the brake to the gas and, with tires chirping, swung left through the red light.

Behind them a horn sounded angrily. Ahead, their quarry gave a sudden startled glance over his shoulder, then tucked his head down, hunched his shoulders, and began to run.

The Ford’s headlights held him pinned for a timeless moment and, in that moment, Sandy Hair leaned out his window, gripping a long, thin tube in his tightly clenched fist and his crooked elbow. A wire ran from the tube to under the car’s dash.

The headlights dimmed, then brightened.

A scarlet needle probed into the running man’s back.

He kept on running, his arms pumping, legs churning.

The Ford’s headlights swept beyond him, and then the car was accelerating past him. Its taillights winked once, and then it had made the corner and was gone.

The man was still running. Only his arms jerked up and down erratically, and his feet kept stumbling.

The man was still running as he fell.

A tall, well-muscled man strode back and forth across a lavishly furnished room. His thick blond hair was tousled, and every so often his right hand would rise, as if by its own volition, to push absently through his hair again.

“This inactivity,” he muttered to himself. “It’s got me climbing the walls. It’s got me talking to myself, just to hear my own voice.” And it brought back memories, memories he didn’t want to face, memories of other days, other places, other people. Memories of people lost—and dead.

On his bed were strewn a half-dozen paperback books:

One was a science-fiction novel. Another was a detective mystery. There were two Westerns, a brittle modern comedy, and a war novel. The war novel had been a mistake. Reading—or trying to read—had been a mistake anyway but, after starting the war novel and throwing it down after five pages, it was useless to try to escape into the pages of any of the other books.

He couldn’t quite get interested in the plight of the helpless homesteader against the ruthless cattle baron.

The kooky life of a square kid with Greenwich Village parents didn’t even bring a smile. And the science-fiction novel—all about invaders from the twenty-sixth century—seemed, like the detective novel, to blend too many fantastic memories with too many melodramatic absurdities.

The door opened, and a balding man in livery poked his head in.

“Ah, Mr. Rogers, sir? There seems to be a disturbance in the street. I thought you might…?”

Rogers whirled to face the smaller man, turning so suddenly that he startled him. His face lit with a grin. “What’s happening?”

“Ah, a man, sir. He collapsed on the sidewalk. I don’t know what else…”

Rogers pushed his lithe body past the other and hurried out into the hall, down the heavily banistered stairs.

Still hatless and coatless, he burst out of the front door to see a small group of people clustered in a knot just down the sidewalk.

One of the men was saying, “Looks like a drunk to me.”

“No, no,” insisted a teenaged girl. “They shot him! I saw it!”

“I didn’t hear any shots,” sniffed a matronly woman in furs.

“Why doesn’t somebody call a doctor?” the girl asked.

“He could be dying!”

“If you ask me, he’s just had a few too many,” repeated the first man.

“More and more of them drifting over here all the time,” the matronly woman stated. “I don’t know what we’re paying the police for!”

Rogers elbowed his way into the group, and knelt at the man’s side. Expertly, he lifted the man’s wrist and felt for a pulse. It took him a while to find one; it was weak and erratic.

“Let’s have some air, please,” he said, addressing the crowd. “Has anyone called the police?”

“Well!” the matronly woman announced. “I’m sure if anyone had, they’d have been here by now!”

“Well, then,” Rogers said, looking up over his shoulder, “why don’t you get them?”

“Me? Why, I never!”

“Did anyone see what happened?” Rogers asked, ignoring her.

“I did,” said the girl. “He was running down the street and this car was chasing him, and a red ray came out of it and it knocked him down!”

“Ahhh, bushwaw,” an older man said in tones ringing with disgust. “She’s been seeing too many James Bond movies, mister. This car, see, it ran the light and some- body honked at it, and that’s all she saw. This guy was blind, staggerin’ drunk, that’s all.”

“Really,” Rogers said. “Strange—I smell no alcohol on him.”

“Yeah? You a doctor or something?”

Rogers ignored him, and began easing the man over, onto his back.

The man’s dark brows grew close together, then relaxed. He gave a racking cough, his mouth opening and closing convulsively. Blood drooled from the corner of his mouth. Those who saw it gasped and drew back.

“Hey!” It was the same man. “You a doctor, or what? What are you doing to that man?” He reached down and plucked at Rogers’ sleeve.

The big blond man’s eyes narrowed momentarily and his muscles tensed. “Keep your hands off me,” he said in a voice that was not loud, but somehow carried its threat effectively. The man drew back hastily.

On the pavement, the dying man’s eyes opened. For a moment his gaze was clear and lucid.

“Cap—Captain America,” he gasped, and then began choking and coughing. “Gotta get to him…”

A peculiar gleam came into Rogers’ eyes then, but no one saw it. The man on the sidewalk said nothing more. His breath seemed to hack once or twice, and then he was still.

Totally still.

Dead.

Manhattan Island is riddled with tunnels. These tunnels serve as the veins and arteries that keep this, the most important part of New York City, alive. Through small tunnels thousands of miles of wires and cables are laid to bring light and electricity as well as telephone communications to everyone who needs or wants them. Other tunnels carry the gas mains, water, and sewage. But the most important tunnels for many New Yorkers are the subway tunnels, for through these speed the multitude of trains which carry over four million people daily to and from work, and carry many more midday shoppers, evening theatergoers, and people who just need to get from one part of this vast city to another easily and cheaply. The subways are the backbone of the city. Without them—as subways strikes have proven—the city is reduced to chaos, for no city’s streets could handle the number of cars that would be necessary for a population of over eight million.

Subways honeycomb Manhattan, for Manhattan is the focus of the city. But few people realize that, although the New York City subway system has not stopped growing, its subterranean network is still greater than that which is in use.

Children who stand gawking at the front of the first car in a subway train sometimes catch glimpses of branching tunnels, shadowy, unlit, tracks rusting. But when they ask their fathers, those worthy gentlemen are wont to scratch their heads and mutter, “I dunno, son. I guess that’s just something they never finished.”

One of the tunnels they never finished is in Lower Manhattan—in the financial district. It was to be part of a line constructed just before World War I, linking Lower Manhattan with Brooklyn.

The workers in those days were often immigrants, fresh off the ship from the Old Country, and eager for the money said to be lying in the gutters of the cities of America.

They didn’t find streets of gold, but they found a bustling, growing city, and one still eager for unskilled labor and the brawny back.

They poured into the construction trades, wielding picks, shovels and, later, power hammers and other more demanding tools. But in 1912, they used mostly their broad backs, cutting and shoveling through the underpinnings of Manhattan, digging tunnels where the ground was soft enough, resorting to the sledgehammer, the hand-held drill, and dynamite where it wasn’t. They were a tough lot, working and cursing, long, hot, dark days, deep under the city streets.

These men were a superstitious lot, often uneducated, steeped more in the lore of Europe and the Old Country than in the science of industrial America. They believed in magic, in vampires, in the Evil Eye—and in trolls.

Trolls are said to be evil ogres who dwell underground, far from the sun’s rays. They are terrible creatures, and no man, no matter how toughly muscled, would want to meet up with one.

One day—who can say for sure?—a man, a tunnel digger, working on the new stretch of subway tunnel that would link Manhattan with Brooklyn, saw a troll.

He said he saw a troll.

Does it matter? He may have seen only the reflection in a bit of quartz from his own lantern.

Or he may have seen the red gleam of the eyes of a troll.

It made no difference. He told his fellow workers. The story spread. He’d seen a troll.

That section of the subway was blocked off. The city authorities didn’t believe in trolls. But they were faced with a working force which did. And those men, those strong, tough, superstitious men, wouldn’t work in that tunnel. It was connected with a cavern of the trolls, they said. They didn’t want to dig a subway at all. But the authorities—at no small expense—authorized a change in the routing of the tunnel. They ordered the tunnel head blocked off. They ordered a new tunnel to detour around the abandoned working.

And the construction went on, and the subway line was completed, opened, used, and is still used today by thousands of people.

The abandoned tunnel?

It ran under Liberty Street, coming to a halt near Nassau Street. Right near Liberty Place.

Almost directly under the illegally parked Continental.
Spoiler Alert: The dead guy's identity will surprise you!

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Sunday, July 4, 2021

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE GREAT GOLD STEAL "Origin" & "Introduction"

Appropriately enough, we begin our prose adventure on the 4th of July...
THE ORIGIN OF CAPTAIN AMERICA
Steve Rogers was born on July 9, 1917. Orphaned in his youth, he grew to be a pitifully puny physical specimen who devoted all his energies to intellectual pursuit. Sensing the outbreak of World War II, Rogers attempted to join the Army and was rejected as unfit.
Crushed, he returned to his studies at Columbia University until a strange letter summoned him to the Department of Justice. Because of his negative qualifications, Steve Rogers was to become the guinea pig in a bold experiment—Operation Rebirth.

For weeks, Rogers underwent an exhaustive series of tests and operations. Steel tubing was inserted into the marrow of his bones. He was subjected to rigorous physical training and fed new high protein compounds. Day by day, the weakling grew into an amazing physical dynamo.
And then, the final treatment—a secret chemical injected into Steve Rogers’ system gave him complete control over every nerve, muscle and cell in his now magnificent body.

From that time on, Steve Rogers could withstand extraordinary physical punishment; his metabolism could be speeded up or slowed down at will; wounds would heal in half the normal time; and, he became impervious to disease, numbing cold or blistering heat.
Steve Rogers the scholar, became the invincible human juggernaut destined to champion the cause of world justice—the living legend known as
CAPTAIN AMERICA!
INTRODUCTION
by STAN LEE
Many are the superheroes who have risen from the carnage and the devastation of World War II…but none more gallant, none more daring, none more inspiring than the red-white-and-blue-clad avenger who has fired the imagination of two generations of freedom-loving fans.

Where is the heart that does not beat faster at the mere mention of his glory-studded name? Where is the pulse that does not quicken at the sight of his lithe, muscular form—his flashing shield—his colorful costume? Where is the spy, the traitor, the murderous arch-fiend who does not tremble in unabashed terror at the awesome sight of democracy’s greatest defender?

For those who have already thrilled to his fantastic exploits within the pages of world-famed Marvel Comics, we need say no more. But, if you are about to meet him for the first time, be prepared for one of the most unforgettable experiences of your life as you fight side by side with the living legend of World War II—the most universally honored hero of his time-the dazzling human dynamo whom men call…CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Tomorrow...
Death by Laser

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Captain America
The Great Gold Steal
by Ted White

The long out-of-print first Captain America novel!

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Asian Avengers GREEN TURTLE "The Vengeance of the Green Turtle"

We re-presented the Green Turtle's premiere adventure HERE...
....now we continue with his second appearance, with a cover that's not by the strip's writer/artist, Chu Fook Hing!
How do we know?
Because you can see the Green Turtle's face...which was never seen before or after this!
And, his sidekick, Burma Boy is wearing a costume which also was never seen before or after this cover!
So, who did the illustration?
The answer is sadly, lost to the mists of time...
The Green Turtle's revelation of his origin was always interrupted by an emergency through the strip's entire run!
Talks about a "masked mystery man"!

The Green Turtle WILL Return...

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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Asian Avengers BLACKHAWK "Operation White Dragon" Part 2

...during World War II, the Blackhawks are sent to Japanese-occupied China to help the Resistance against the invaders.
They encounter a costumed hero named The White Dragon who leads a band of rebels harassing the Japanese!
The team then contacts the local leader, who refuses to help them in their operations, to avoid antagonizing the Japanese, and his son, who collaborates with the occupiers!
To appease the Japanese military governor, the leader gives up the location of the White Dragon's headquarters.
When the invaders ambush and capture the hero, he's revealed to be the Chinese leader's son and ordered to be executed...
Though still called "Chop-Chop", Liu Huang was an equal member of the team, even flying his own aircraft (In the old days, he was stuck in the passenger seat of Blackhawk's plane.)
A couple of years later, with sales dropping, DC "updated" the series by making the middle-aged aviators into superhero/spies with outlandish  powers and code-names.
Liu, as the youngest of the group, became "Dr Hands", started speaking hipster jive, and was given a tuxedo...and titanium gloves...
There was never an explanation of how the gloves worked.
At least DC didn't put the team into spandex, considering their ages ranged from mid-30s to mid-50s...
To read the entire sordid story, click HERE and Follow the links at the end of each chapter!
Bonus: Click HERE to read Chop-Chop's Golden Age origin in our "brother" RetroBlog, Not Safe for Work Comics!
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The only novel based on the comic book!