CHAPTER 13
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
As dawn approached, Captain America had found his way back down from the rooftops. The heavy darkness of the unlit streets and the swirling fog that moved through them were allies. The fog muffled sounds and concealed his passage up the street.
Just ahead of him now was the vague shape of the parked Continental, its massive trunk facing him. He recognized the car and its diplomatic license; it was one of those near which he’d parked the Volkswagen at the U.N. It had to be the car he’d been kidnapped in.
The car blocked the end of Liberty Place effectively.
Droplets of mist, condensed from the fog, stood out sharply on its highly waxed surface. There seemed to be no one close by; the nearest guard was a man laboriously lighting his cigarette, his hands cupped around his face, twenty yards away. Rogers smiled. He’d never pass muster in the army! Sloppy stance, wandering attention, he was a lousy guard—which was just fine.
The trunk of the car was locked, but Rogers removed his shield from his left arm and pushed its edge under the lip of the trunk lid. The high-alloy steel did not even bend as his heavily muscled body applied pressure and leverage. There was a muffled rasp, and the trunk lid, counter-sprung, started to swing up and open. He grabbed it quickly, before the abrupt motion could catch the careless guard’s attention. Then, sliding the shield in ahead of him, he climbed into the trunk and pulled the lid down after him. There was plenty of room, room enough to stretch out and be almost comfortable. He slipped down his left gauntlet from his wrist and glanced at his watch. Almost five o’clock. They must be closing up soon. In another half hour it would be growing light. He relaxed, and waited.
Twenty minutes later, he heard voices approaching the car, but too muffled to be understood. The metal body of the car transmitted more faithfully, however, the sound of door latches and the heavy thunk of the doors slamming shut. The car shifted and settled as the three men took their seats, and then the engine was setting up a distant hum, and they were moving.
He felt the turns, and could guess the approximate distance traveled between them. The streets, forever being dug up for one reason or another, were jouncing and uneven all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge approaches, where finally the ride smoothed out. Rogers clung to the trunk lid, and waited.
The car followed the Beltway south, over western Brooklyn, taking the fork to the right that put it on the new expressway approach to the Verazanno-Narrows Bridge, Interstate 278. The fog was thick along the waterfront, but thinned as the route dodged briefly inland before swinging up over the bridge.
Sparrow was driving now, the seat pulled all the way forward to accommodate his short legs, much to Starling’s discomfort. Sparrow knew where the estate was, however, and had insisted on driving. It was, after all, a car the Eagle had obtained for their use, DPL tags and all, and therefore Starling’s rights to it were hardly proprietary, despite the fact that he had used it almost exclusively until now. This fact calmed him very little, however. He was feeling the head-pounding, stomach-cramping, adrenalized effects of extreme tension, the tension of trying to make this whole incredible operation work. His hands shook as he took out another cigarette and pushed in the dash lighter. They shook no less appreciably when Raven pointed out, with a certain sardonic tone to his voice, that he still had a half-smoked cigarette between his lips. The cigarettes were tasteless, anyway. He didn’t know why he was smoking them.
The traffic signals on the bridge were blinking yellow for all lanes. Fog swirled thickly over them. Sparrow drove in the extreme right-hand lane, keeping the railing barely in sight. Their speed had slowed to twenty miles an hour, and even then they almost collided with the rear of a large semi- that was climbing the bridge far slower, the tiny sprinkling of red lights on its trailer winking out at them only at the last moment.
Sparrow drove with implacable silence, his face showing no expression, even after they bad passed the truck. It was as though his face was only a mask. Starling felt almost like reaching out and ripping it off, just to be confronted by feelings, something on which to release his own bottled-up tensions. But there was nothing to do but light another cigarette.
They crept into the toll plaza, coasting up to the single booth still open at this hour. Starling felt an inexplicable rush of fear as Sparrow lowered his window and banded a ten-dollar bill to the man in the booth. He wanted to stamp down with his left foot, very suddenly, upon Sparrow’s foot hovering over the gas pedal; to stamp down and make the car move, to get away.
The man was counting the bills very slowly, counting them three times, the third time into Sparrow’s calmly waiting hand. Starling fought his panic. Did they usually take this long? Didn’t they usually keep packets of change ready for such an occasion? The small sign on the booth warned, “Count Your Change,” but did the toll taker normally count it out, like a clerk in a supermarket? Was he trying to delay them?
Then they were smoothly accelerating away, and Starling spoke. “I don’t like it,” he said nervously. “That man took too long.”
“Relax,” Raven said from the back seat. “It’s cold, clammy weather. His fingers were stiff. There’s no traffic now, he can take his time. Besides, why worry? We’re safe. There’s not an ounce of gold in this car, nothing to connect us up. They could stop us now for speeding, and we’d be clean.”
“They won’t.” Sparrow continued to stare ahead through the fog. “We’re not speeding.”
He took the ramp up to a local street, and turned left. The street led a curving path through an old neighborhood, past a private school. The road was red brick, damp and slippery in this misty fog.
The sky was lightening, but this only turned the fog a milkier hue, without thinning it. Sparrow pushed in the lights, leaving only parking lights, then pulled them back on full.
They drifted like ghosts through an abandoned traffic circle, and then were on a wide boulevard, Hylan Boulevard. The car moved effortlessly south, through clusters of haloed traffic lights, all green, past shopping centers, new apartment developments, open fields, and older villages. The boulevard cut south-west, roughly following the eastern shore of the island to its southern tip, a distance of some ten miles from the bridge.
Staten Island, even without the fog, was another country, another land, difficult to associate with New York City, although it was the fifth borough of the City. When a green New York City Transit Authority bus passed by, it was a jarring reminder, but seemed out of place, lost.
Until the completion of the bridge, Staten Island—the borough of Richmond—had been accessible to the rest of the City only by ferry. It had retained its bucolic character, its farms, indeed, supplying many of the vegetable bins of city supermarkets. It was an island of rolling wooded hills, of scattered townships and villages, some three centuries old, reminders that New York was first settled by the Dutch, not the English. The bridge had brought the city to the island, though, and now developers hastily sliced farmlands into miniature subplots, erected cheese-box houses of cardboard quality, and sold them in profusion to harried New Yorkers seeking suburbia.
But most of the land development was in the northern part of the island. As Sparrow drove south, they left the new construction behind. Here was an area mapped for streets and houses thirty years ago, fire hydrants standing alone in the woods, cracked concrete lanes all but covered by weeds and grass.
At the southern tip of the island was the village of Tottenville, a town with narrow, one-way streets, closely set old frame houses, and access, across the Outerbridge Crossing, to nearby New Jersey, where most of the town’s residents worked and shopped. Sparrow wheeled the car through near-empty streets, until he came to a high fence that ran along a weed-choked concrete road. The fence was of boards, and buried beneath years of vines. Behind it, not visible from the street side, was a wall of brick, much newer.
Sparrow touched his horn ring briefly, and the gates to a long drive swung open.
Once this had been a farm. They drove past the weathered old house along the rutted drive, and parked near a large barn. Inside the barn, Starling caught the glint of light on metal. The trucks were parked there.
“So at last we meet the elusive Eagle,” Raven said, climbing from the car, raising his arms over his head and stretching. He drew a deep breath. “Good air out here. I can’t smell the city at all.”
“You wait until the breeze is from New Jersey,” Sparrow smiled thinly. “It’s worse.” He led them up onto the back porch of the old house, and inside.
Captain America waited until the voices had receded, then inched the trunk lid open for a fast peek.
Fog lay heavily over the ground, making the house and nearby trees gray and insubstantial-looking. The trees dripped, drops falling irregularly upon the resonant trunk lid. A light went on in one window of the house, then two more. The light was warm and inviting. The humidity outside seemed to cut through to his bones.
No one was in sight. He wondered if the police had sealed the exits by now. He hoped they were standing by, he might well need their support. Cautiously, he stepped from the trunk and strapped on his shield.
The turf underfoot was damp and squishy, the remains of unmowed summer grass, littered with fallen leaves and twigs. Fortunately, it was too sodden to make any noise.
He crept to the nearest window, and looked in. He could see a tall, bald man, making nervous gestures with his arms. No one else could be seen. The window was closed. He could hear nothing.
The cold tip of a gun touched his spine.
“Okay, fella, ease back gentle now.” It was Randolph, one of the two men who had jumped him before.
He could have taken the man, standing right there. The gunman had been too close for his own safety; commandos were routinely warned never to get that close with a gun—only with a knife.
But he wanted to get inside, and this way was as good as any. As a prisoner, he would be taken for granted. He had no doubt he could handle the situation.
“All right,” he said calmly. “You’ve made your point.”
Randolph prodded him around to the back porch steps. There were over a dozen moments when he could have overpowered the man. But he bided his time.
“Boss? Got a surprise for you!”
The door opened and Marcus stood back, letting Randolph bring his prize in, through an antiquated kitchen and a long-unused dining room, to a parlor-type room.
Three men were in the room, and all turned to look at him in surprise. Two of them—the tall, thin, bald man, and a paunchy, friendly looking man with an overgrown mop of hair—were strangers, although he fitted them, from Robin’s description, with their cover names, Starling and Raven.
The third man in the room was John B. Gaughan.
The two locked eyes and stared at each other as though the room were empty but for the two of them.
“I should have known, ‘Sparrow,’” Captain America said. “You people always seemed to know just a little too much.”
“What’s he talking about, Sparrow?” Starling said. “What’s he mean?”
“What I want to know,” Raven drawled, “is how this sonuvva got here. Last time I saw him, he was tied up in my living room.”
Gaughan—Sparrow—said nothing.
“Your friend, the Sparrow,” Captain America told Starling, “also goes under the name of John Gaughan. He’s a Vice Director of the Federal Reserve Bank, in Manhattan.”
“It was Robin,” Sparrow said. His voice was high and abrupt. “She let you loose, didn’t she?”
“Let’s just say she acquired some sense.”
“I had misgivings about her from the start,” Sparrow muttered. “But she was too lovely to resist.”
“Wait a minute,” Raven said. “You had misgivings? You mean, you brought her in?”
Sparrow smiled a cold smile. “That’s right. I’m afraid the deception goes farther than you’d thought. Gentlemen, I am the Eagle!”
The other two stared at him, open-mouthed. But Rogers spoke.
“Let’s not stop there, ‘Sparrow.’ Why not pull out all stops?”
Sparrow’s eyes glinted. “So you recognized me from the sound of my voice, eh, Captain America?”
“It took me a long time. I didn’t catch on to you at all when you were just being John Gaughan, a fussy bank official. You changed your voice a bit for that role. Then, when you unmasked me—I was awake then—I thought your voice was familiar, but I wasn’t yet hearing too well. At first, when I saw you here, I thought I was just recognizing Gaughan’s voice. But I wasn’t.”
“Er, Sparrow—er, Eagle—what’s he talking about?” Starling was kneading his hands in tension.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” Raven chimed in. “So you were the Eagle all along? That’s cute. I’ll buy that. But what’s he”—he jabbed a finger at Captain America—“talking about? You guys know each other?”
“I’m afraid we do,” the small man said. “It’s an—ah—acquaintanceship that goes back many years. Many years. I wasn’t sure, when I unmasked you,” he said, speaking directly to Captain America. “You looked too young. You looked not much older than when we first locked horns—back during the Great War.”
“Your side lost,” Rogers said.
“But I have found another side,” the man said. “They pay well for success, and they allow me to operate as a free agent.”
“I thought as much. It was the only thing that made sense out of this fantastic robbery. But how well do they pay for failure?”
“Failure?” The little man’s voice rose an octave. “I have not failed! We have less than the whole thirteen billion, but we have taken a great deal. Three billion at least!”
“I doubt it. Do you know how much a billion dollars in gold weighs? Over eight hundred fifty-four tons. I don’t believe your small fleet of trucks brought out even one billion.”
“No! You lie!” He was screaming now. “It makes no difference, no difference at all. I have stolen a billion in gold! And I have Captain America in my grasp again!”
“Boss.” It was Randolph, speaking for the first time since he had pushed Rogers into the room. He was the only one there with a drawn gun.
“Silence, you fool! Look at you all, your mouths gaping, your eyes hanging out. You don’t understand. You can’t understand!” He lifted his hands to his throat.
“You don’t know yet who I am!”
With thin, facile fingers, he pulled loose the skin of his jowls, and pulled it up, over his head, stripping his face of its flesh, leaving only a bloody grinning skull.
The room was frozen, and in that moment, Captain America made his move. Somewhere inside him a hand clamped down, speeding adrenalin into his system, accelerating his metabolism, doubling his reflexes, and his speed. In one swift motion he stepped backward, stamping down hard with his heel on Randolph’s instep, pivoting on it, his elbow sinking into the man’s gut, and then chopping with his other hand at the gun. Around him, the room was still in a slow-motion crawl.
Randolph screamed. His foot was broken. Captain America caught the magnum 38 in his left hand, hefted it, and sidestepped to a corner of the room where he could command both doors and all the occupants. Blood pounded in his ears and he took two deep breaths to calm his system.
“All right, Red Skull,” he said, nodding at the man who still stood with John Gaughan’s face in his hand. “The show is over. The place is surrounded by cops. We’ve had you all under observation since you began this night’s insane work. As I said, you’ve failed.”
The Red Skull—a man scarred and misshapen in both mind and body, a Nazi, once Hitler’s ace terrorist agent—stood stock-still, as though stunned.
But Starling moved. He remembered once before, when he had faced a man with a gun. He had shot and killed that man. He could do so again. He understood nothing of this fantastic caricature who had been their leader except that it must be as Captain America had said. They had failed. His hand flashed into his coat.
He had the gun half out when the gun in Captain America’s hand spoke a single shot. The bullet drilled through his thigh as though through tissue paper, shattering his hip, throwing him to the floor.
But it did not kill him—not instantly. He squeezed off a shot in the general direction of where Captain America had been standing before the darkness closed in. The bullet ricocheted. Then he dropped the gun.
“Apparently this thing shoots high,” Rogers said, hefting the magnum. “Anyone else want to try his luck? You, Red Skull?”
Raven had his hands raised anxiously. “Don’t shoot, fella. I’m peaceable. I’ve never handled a gun in my life.”
Rogers smiled grimly. “Keep it that way.”
The death’s head visage of the Red Skull twisted in a horrible grimace. It seemed meant as a smile.
“You would not shoot us, Captain America. Not in cold blood. See, my hands are empty.”
Rogers sensed movement from the dining-room door, but, before he could move, a shot rang out.
“You lose, Red Skull,” said Marcus, stepping in through the doorway.
The Red Skull’s mouth gaped as his wide jawbone fell slack. He clutched himself. His eyes were wide and staring in their deep sockets as his knees folded and he fell to the floor.
As the Red Skull fell, Captain America trained his gun on Marcus. “Drop the gun,” he said.
Marcus let the gun fall. “You asked him the price of failure,” he said.
Rogers nodded. “You people never fully trust anyone, do you?”
“It was an insane idea to begin with,” Marcus said. “But when he brought it to us, we decided what was there to lose? He is a free agent, available to the highest bidder. If he fails, we have not been involved.” He gave a sarcastic laugh. “What made him think he could get away with it? If he had succeeded, your army and navy, your air force—everyone would have been combing the whole country, both oceans.”
“He expected cash for the gold?”
“Fifty percent. We have dollar reserves available.”
“And you were to have a freighter waiting offshore for the pickup?”
“That was his plan, yes. I…”
The sound of shattering glass swung them all around to the window.
The Red Skull was gone!
Captain America spoke first. “Don’t get excited and try anything. The place is surrounded. He won’t get far.” He mentally crossed his fingers, hoping.
A bitter fire burned in the Red Skull’s brain, an extension of the hot wire that ran through his shoulder. He panted as he ran, dodging through the wet underbrush. Failure! He’d failed! Worse. He’d been sold out. Twice he’d been sold out. First by that double-crossing vixen of a girl—damn her inviting figure—and then by that commie agent, Marcus. Sell him short, would they? Gun him down like a common American punk? He’d show them. He’d show them!
He made his way down to the wharf. They didn’t know about this! They didn’t realize that his property extended down to the waterline. He had his escape route ready, everything waiting. They’d be empty-handed yet, and some day, when they’d forgotten and he hadn’t, he’d be back—to settle the score.
He pulled at the ropes, and the slim, wave-hugging speedboat moved slowly out from under the rotted boards. He cast the line loose, and jumped down into the shallow cockpit. He threw out his right arm to steady himself, and almost screamed in pain as his shoulder gave.
But then he was settled, strapped into the tiny racing cockpit. He touched the starter, and the big engines throbbed into life. He throttled back on them quickly. They were unmuffled, their exhaust going into the water. He swung the wheel, and began edging the boat out into deeper water.
He was only fifty yards from shore when a heavy yellow beam impaled him and the boat.
“This is the Coast Guard,” spoke an amplified and disembodied voice. “We have you on radar and in sight. We have guns trained on you. Prepare to be picked up.”
“No!” he screamed. He shook his fist at the light. “No, I won’t!” he rammed the throttle all the way forward.
The tiny boat gave a great leap up onto the surface of the water and, engines roaring, shot out past the fog-shrouded Coast Guard cutter.
A siren sounded, the banshee wail sliding up and down the scale. Then there was the boom of a gun.
It was a direct hit. All they ever found were expensive hardwood splinters.
Of the already wounded Red Skull, there was no trace. They dragged the bay, but without success. The tides are fierce along that section of coast. The undertow might have dragged him miles out to sea.
And there was no one who shed a tear.
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