dochermes

"Strangled By a Puppet's Strings"

3/22/1945

I.

In a guest room of Drum's house on Bleecker Street, Chen Lee-Sun stretched out on the bed, took deep slow breaths and was fast asleep at once. Leaving the door open a crack, Mark Drum smiled at his young guest and went down the long hallway to his den. Here, still in an overstuffed easy chair, sat the Sting.

"That's a neat trick your partner picked up," Drum said as he crossed over to sit down facing the masked man. "No matter what the situation, he can drop off to dreamland in a few seconds."

The Sting grunted. "Yes. I've often envied him that. Chen has mostly studied his peoples' fighting styles, what he calls 'gung fu,' but he's also dabbled in some yoga and Tai Chi. We often go for days without sleeping, so he grabs a nap whenever he can."

Loosening his tie and unfastening the top button of his light blue dress shirt, Drum sighed wearily and closed his eyes. "It still bothers me to see you like this, Robert. I've tried all my Blue Guide techniques but nothing heals your legs. There's not even any physical damage I can find."

"Don't take it too hard," said the Sting. "I've been to dozens of doctors. Also to some old white-bearded sifus that Chen knows. It's Dim Mak, the Death Touch. No one has a way to restore use of my legs. Of course I'm not happy about it but at least it doesn't hurt."

Drum was a tall, sturdily built man in his thirties. Unruly black hair contrasted with deep pale grey eyes in a craggy face that was more stern than goodlooking. Faint echoes of his childhood in the Highlands had never left his voice entirely. "Even so, you've continued your work. You have quite a record cleaning up this town, Robert. Racketeers, black marketers, Axis spies, Fifth Columnists... you've been busy."

Lifting his head, the Sting revealed a full-face black cotton mask with only eyeholes showing any expression. Even here with one of the few men who knew his secret, Robert Hawk concealed his face. He was starting to feel as if the mask WAS his face. He certainly found he could think more quickly and decisively when masked, for whatever reason. "I like to think I've made a difference. It's certainly been nerve-wracking!"

"Posing as a free-lance criminal yourself so you can infiltrate mobs and turn them against each other. Damn. How do you keep all the double-crosses and lies and turnarounds straight?"

"Oh, I've screwed up a few times, believe me. It's like dancing on quicksand. Mark, we've been sitting here for what feels like forever. How much longer do we have to wait before we head out?"

"The third member of our team should come roaring in any minute now," the Blue Guide responded. "We'll need his good right arm. Up against the spymaster Puppeteer! What a devil that man is. Manhattan tonight is crowded with G-Men and men from Army Intelligence and every New York cop that could be called in. And none of them are making any more progress than we are, sad to say."

On a cabinet top near at hand sat two identical telephones. Concealed until needed, a powerful shortwave receiver could be slid out from within the cabinet to receive orders from the War Department. One of the phones rang shrill and Drum stretched out an arm to snatch up the instrument. He listened briefly, then spoke only "I understand, sir."

The Sting did not have to prompt his colleague for explanation. Drum hung up the phone, frowning with his eyebrows lowered. "That was Lieutenant-Colonel Collins of the OSS again. Overseas, he's been working under the alias 'Colonel Savage,' which I find a bit too melodramatic. He had no new information, he only wants to nag us to catch the Puppeteer for him so he can run back to occupied territory."

"Lucky him. Maybe he'll be in Berlin when our boys come marching in."

"Nothing would make him happier..." Drum broke off, swinging around in his chair. "That lifeforce at the door. It's like a bonfire. Sulak is here at last."

As he finished the last word, a massive form loomed up in the doorway. "I let myself in, Mark. Thanks for the key. Tonight's the night!"

Taller than even Drum and much brawnier, Sulak was intimidating merely filling the doorway. The huge Melgar was wrapped in a white trenchcoat which could not conceal how broad his shoulders were. Setting down a valise, he took off a fedora which badly needed blocking. A shaggy head of jet-black hair left long by contemporary standard framed a face marked with bright blue eyes and a lantern jaw. "Try to tell me you two have not been impatiently waiting for me."

"Like you would believe that," Drum responded as he rose. "I take it our informant came through? What's in that briefcase?"

"Hopefully what we need, and hopefully it's worth the cost!" Sulak said. "That little weasel won't have to get a job for a year with what he was paid."

"It's the War Department money, not ours. Our tax dollars at work!" scoffed Drm.

Still seated, leaning back, the Sting did not try to match their positive attitude. "Against this Puppeteer... I don't know. I'd be happier if we had more definite information. Reconnaisance. A "B" plan if things go south."

Sulak waved a dismissing hand. "Look at the four of us, Robert. Great strength, fighting skill, Tel Shai magic and shrewd craftiness. When we bring all these together, how can anything survive our attack?"

"Let's have a look at the papers before we hurt our arms patting ourselves on the back," grumbled the masked man.

Bringing the valise over to the cabinet between their chairs, the Melgar champion tapped the keyhole in its lid. "Locked," he smiled as he ripped the tough leather side of the case apart without any seeming effort. They had seen him peel apart steel plate as easily.

"If I ever need a jar of pickles opened, I know who to call..." Mark Drum scoffed.
Inside was a single thick manila envelope, its flap sealed with red wax. The Blue Guide lifted it appraisingly, then handed it over to the Sting. "Robert, this is definitely your area of expertise."

"Oh, yes, codes and cryptology are my meat," said the masked man. With gloved hands, he opened the envelope and slid out a sheaf of stiff yellow-tinged paper. "German manufacture, see the watermark? Up in the right hand corner, 'Page One of Fourteen Pages, initialed by two different people. Definitely classified, I might even say High Command material."

"My German is not what it should been even after four years of this war," admitted Sulak. "Read it to me."

"Ah, it's in code of course. This might take a while, old fellow. We're not supposed to have access to the Enigma findings but, you know, generals tend to give us some privileges." The Sting riffled through the parchment-like pages. "Mark, we will need some pencils and lots of paper. Black coffee wouldn't hurt either."

Peering over the Sting's shoulder, Sulak grumbled, "I don't suppose I can be of any use?"

"Afraid not," said the masked man. "This is where Mark and I have put in years of hard study. When it's time to shrug off bullets on your chest or bend machine gun barrels into pretzels, that's when you will be more valuable than a squad of Marines. Look here, Mark, I think this word in bigger numbers stands for 'Berlin,' it appears five times on the first page. Now, if that gives us the number 12 for the letter E, we can start to make some progress."

"Maybe. See, there's a few examples of two 12s next to each other, very likely a vowel in any case if not E. Could be O. We're starting with the premise that this is a basic transposition of course..."

After a few minutes of Drum and the Sting ignoring him while they scribbled and mumbled, Sulak turned away. The giant warrior swung on one heel and strode sullenly out of the den. Drum's modernistic kitchen was down the hall, all Art Deco chromium and aluminum tubing. Even the four-burner gas stove was sleek and streamlined. Drum had already taken the coffee pot with a few mugs on a tray back to the den.

Drum had long ago given the three members of their informal team full use of the icebox. Sulak began hauling out a stack of sliced roast beef, Swiss cheese, mustard, some lettuce. A fresh loaf of pumpernickel bread sat on a sideboard with a knife alongside. Fine. He might as well enjoy himself while he waited. The superhuman Melgar constructed a pair of bulging sandwiches that would put most people into a gorged stupor after eating, popped open three bottles of beer and sat down at the round table in the corner. His time to shine would come, he reassured himself. While he ate, just down the hall two of the sharpest minds in the Midnight War tackled a code that was constructed to not be broken.

( the rest of the story )

"Whatever Happened To the Green Devil?"

3/22-3/29/2005

I.

March 25, 1945

Late at night through a deserted back area on Long Island's easternmost end, a white delivery van wheeled along at reckless sped along rain-slicked roads. Both sides of the van had VAN ETTEN'S FARMS painted in swirling red letters with the stylized outline of a chicken and a pyramid of eggs depicted. Each week, the van was repainted. Previously, it had read ISLAND FURNITURE REPAIR and before that, QUICK-FIX PLUMBING AND HEATING. New plates went on more often than that.

At the wheel was the colorful figure of Victory Eagle and next to him, one elbow out of the passenger window, sat the Green Devil. It was the first time they had met. Both were used to operating solo but orders from the War Department had been persuasive.

"This is not half bad," Green Devil said, pulling her arm back in and turning the crank to raise the window. "Both our motorcycles fit in the rear and we can check out the area without being obvious. I should buy something similar, maybe a panel truck. Not that I could afford it..."

"Yes. Well, we are amazingly conspicuous in these ridiculous costumes," grumbled the Victory Eagle. He was a tall, remarkably athletic man whose impressive physique was concealed by a tight silk outfit of bright blue pullover shirt and tights. Red leather gloves and boots, as well as a wide belt of red leather, added another primary color. All but the lower half of his face beneath the nose was concealed by a snug blue hood with two eye holes and a small white eagle symbol like the NRA emblem. Across the muscular chest was emblazoned a much larger three-quarter view version of the eagle in flight, its wings spread and its talons clenched as ready to strike. The red, white and blue motif was appropriate.

Seeing how Green Devil was checking him out, Victory Eagle flashed a Hollywood-perfect array of chalk-white teeth. With that smile and the square chin and straight nose, what showed under the mask seemed to indicate quite a handsome specimen. "This wasn't my idea. Apparently, mystery-men in flamboyant uniforms are all the rage these days. I was happy as a spy smasher in regular duds."

"I feel a bit drab next to you," she admitted. She was a slender, supple figure all in dark colors. The tight pants and snug short leather jacket were midnight green, while the high boots and cuff-length gloves were black, as was the white-outlined symbol of a trident on the back of her jacket. The young woman had on a green motorcycle helmet with short curved horns of hard steel fastened up by its temples. As she had been riding along, Green Devil had eventually unfastened the strap under her chin and tugged the helmet off. To Eagle's obvious disappointment, underneath the helmet was a black silk bandana which had been fashioned into a mask.

From under the back of the bandana, strands of brick-red hair, fine-textured, had escaped to trail down her neck. Kelly O'Connor was wearing dark lipstick which helped conceal the full contours of her lips, but that snub upturned nose and the brilliant green eyes still showed.

Getting a good look at her as they rolled past a corner street lamp, Victory Eagle laughed. "A bit Irish, eh?"

"Astounding! Eh, not much deduction required for that, Eagle. I worked up this get-up mostly because I was inspired by the other heroes I read about in the newspapers. Mark Drum, Sulak, the Sting and his Dragon of Midnight pal, but especially the Sceptre. She's a hot number all right, taking out one Axis spy ring after another."

"I met the Sceptre not long ago," Eagle said. "I asked her why she hasn't given that weapon to the government so it could be mass-produced. If each of our soldiers was carrying a Sceptre, we'd be strolling through Berlin and Tokyo today. But she said it could not be duplicated and efforts to do so had only resulted in explosions that killed everyone nearby."

"Too bad," sighed Green Devil. "Still, we do what we can with what we have. Hey! Here's the crossroads Major Duberson told us about. Quarreyville Road."

"We turn left here," the Eagle agreed as he eased the van off the narrow back road, up under a pair of elms "Three miles to the target. Maybe here is a good place to switch to our bikes."

"Yeah, that works," Green Devil said. She was wiping the face plate of her helmet with a soft cloth. She lowered it over her head and fastened the strap again. "The Major thinks tonight's job is as important as opening the Second Front, but he over reacts to everything."

When he got out of the van, Victory Eagle did not seem at all silly in the colorful outfit. He was such an imposing specimen and he felt himself so straight and confidently that the bright blue and red outfit seemed normal. From behind the driver's seat, he fetched a leather belt with a flap holster which held an Army Colt .45 automatic and he buckled this on. The belt had a few slits on its inner surface to hold keys and other small items, since the Eagle costume had no pockets.

The two vigilantes worked together to open the rear of the van and lower a sturdy board down to reach the ground at a shallow angle. Vaulting nimbly up into the interior, Green Devil untied the straps which had been securing her bike and started it up. She rode a Triumph from England, imported before the war, with a pair of saddle bags in which she kept civilian clothing, a first aid kit, some useful tools and personal items. She had painted the Triumph a slightly brighter green than her costume, still very hard to see in poor light, with the trident symbol emblazoned on the gas tank. There was not enough room to turn her bike around inside the van, so she backed down the ramp gingerly before feeling stable on level ground.

The Eagle's motorcycle was half again larger, a specially modified Harley-Davidson with a storage bin on the back and with a headlight twice as powerful as the normal model. The body had been painted a brilliant red, white and blue to continue his motif. In front of the handlebars was an oval windscreen of dense plexiglass which, although he didn't mention it, was bullet-resistant if not completely safe against high-powered rifle fire.

"Nice toy," muttered Kelly to herself. "Maybe I should sell out to the government, too." As the powerful Harley revved up and tore away, she gunned her Triumph and stayed right behind him. Another exciting adventure of our daring heroine, she thought, using a radio announcer's voice in her imagination, not suspecting it would be the final exploit of the Green Devil.

( the rest of the story )