Kal-El put on a burst of speed, pulled ahead of the Super Sabre jets, and began closing the gap to the UFO.
As he raced past, he saw that the men inside the LuthorCorp aircraft were activating a kind of pulse beacon from a small antenna. But instead of aiming it at the flying saucer, they pointed the spike back toward the oncoming F-100D squadron.
Behind him, Kal-El heard a cry of surprised dismay transmitted by one of the pilots. “Mayday, Mayday! Flameout!”
The squadron formation broke apart and scattered, with the trailing jets circling away. The lead Super Sabre, though, began gushing black smoke from its engines as it tumbled awkwardly from the sky like a downed waterfowl. The pilot hit his afterburners, trying everything. “All systems FUBAR. Can’t eject. Malfunction! Going down, going down!”
Kal-El saw the F-100D enter a deadly and disorienting flat spin, its engines erupting in a blaze of flame. One of its wings shimmied dangerously. The pilot inside was doomed.
Meanwhile, the LuthorCorp craft beat a hasty retreat, no longer pretending to chase the flying saucer, and the UFO streaked away in a completely different direction.
The remainder of the USAF squadron could do nothing to help their fellow pilot. Their own cockpit systems were also scrambled, and the pilots struggled to keep from crashing alongside their leader.
Kal-El didn’t pause to think about what he should do. He had to forget about the flying saucer. Someone needed his help. He whirled about and dove toward the falling jet.
He filled his lungs and expelled a great gust of air, enough to freeze the engine cowling and extinguish the flames before the fuel tanks exploded. Then, as gently as he could, he took hold of the jet’s belly, raising his hands over his head so he could support the falling deadweight, taking away the burden of gravity as he eased the aircraft toward the barren ground below.
The Super Sabre’s systems were completely fried, which prevented the pilot from extending his landing gear. Kal-El brought the jet down carefully on the desert sand, set it on its belly, then tore away the canopy. He snapped the pilot’s harness and pulled the man to safety, still concerned that the jet might explode.
As he stood on wobbly legs, the pilot removed his helmet and drew deep gasping breaths. He shook his head and looked back at his wrecked plane. “Thanks, Superman. You saved my life.”
“Glad to be able to help. I wouldn’t leave you stranded.” The airman brushed himself off, looking both shaken and relieved.
Normally, such sincere appreciation would have been all Kal-El needed to hear, but he looked up into the sky, where the UFO had already streaked out of sight. The crippled squadron had sent out distress signals and requests for backup, then circled around to retrieve the downed pilot.
With bittersweet disappointment, Kal-El scanned the sky for any silver glint of the saucer, but too much time had passed. The mysterious spacecraft had vanished.
CHAPTER 19
THE LUTHOR MANSION
HE HAD SEEN ENOUGH EVIDENCE, BUT HE DIDN’T HAVE enough answers. Before confronting the members of his board, Bruce decided to go to the core of the problem: Lex Luthor.
The industrial magnate’s private home was in the Lake District north of Metropolis, an extravagant fortress built along the lines of a military citadel, strikingly different from the stately Gothic architecture of Wayne Manor.
Bruce easily found an excuse for a quick trip from Gotham City to Metropolis using his Wayne Enterprises private jet. Charity functions, private meetings with potential donors, maybe even a night on the town—he didn’t need to worry about a cover story.
Before departing for Metropolis, Bruce studied the blueprints (both the redacted plans on public file and the accurate versions that were supposedly not available to anyone), old and forgotten permit applications and rubber-stamped approvals, the landscaping layout, the architectural elevation drawings. He searched for weaknesses and considered some of the surprises that might be waiting for him. Then he got himself ready.
The ostentatious Lake District homes were surrounded by a comfortable buffer of forested land. Luthor’s property was encircled by a dangerous-looking wrought-iron fence topped with spear points, beyond which stretched a no-man’s-land of additional fences and booby traps.
Any man who needed so much security obviously had something to hide. Bruce Wayne knew that from personal experience.
Darkly caped and fearsomely cowled, with heavy-traction boots and armored bodysuit, utility belt loaded with a cornucopia of imaginative tools, he prepared to infiltrate Luthor’s mansion.
He began his approach as soon as full darkness fell. Given the perimeter fences, he decided the best approach was from the lake. Fitting an air mask to his face and immersing himself, he glided forward underwater, creating not even a ripple—a shark now, instead of a bat.
Luthor’s mansion had a private dock, but no boat was tied up to it. While closing the distance and shining a small light into the murky waters before him, he saw large metal spikes strategically submerged at the property line. These would tear the hull of any boat that approached too closely. The placid surface gave no hint of the jagged tips just underwater.
Intent on avoiding these spikes, he didn’t see the fine mesh of entrapment wire that snared him. He struggled, but the elastic net drew tighter. Forcing calm, he worked one gauntlet free and produced a wire cutter from his utility belt, with which he made short, methodical work of the lethal strands. He swam free. Gradually he raised himself above the surface, coming to shore. His thick suit had been scratched by the sharp entrapment wire; a normal swimmer would have been sliced to ribbons.
He crept up from the lake, careful not to stir the dried leaves or fallen branches at the water’s edge. When he reached the spiked fence, he worked his way over and through, careful to make no sound. Before taking a step, he scanned the ground carefully. He found and avoided four trip wires and a land mine trigger. He hoped that no neighbor children accidentally heaved a baseball over the fence; Luthor had a lethal prejudice against unexpected visitors.
After conducting careful surveillance for several hours during his preparations, he already knew the guards’ habits. While he waited in the shadows, five armed men walked about in a standard patrol pattern. Intimidating yet inefficient. Predictable.
Luthor’s intelligence was also his weakness, because he believed himself superior to most people. Since his security would baffle any normal man, he would think he was safe. Arrogant…but sloppy just the same.
The imposing mansion had sharp angles and plenty of glass, metal, and concrete; it did not at all fit with the natural wooded surroundings. The highest roof sported a small private observatory. This “home” seemed designed to convey the impression that Lex Luthor had many friends and social obligations, but the mansion was in fact virtually deserted. As the midnight hour approached, Luthor’s only company was his security team.
With his dark cape helping to hide him, he circled to the wing that housed Luthor’s extravagant second-floor study, which was fronted by a balcony. He suspected that the household safe and Luthor’s private records would be there.
Withdrawing a sharp-pronged grappling hook, he twirled it, paying out the thin, strong cable. He let the hook fly, and it sailed upward on a gentle, precise arc. The prongs caught and lodged around the stone balustrade. He pulled the cable taut, then braced his boots against the stone wall. He felt acutely exposed, worried that a spotlight might happen to brush across the mansion’s exterior. According to their unvarying patrol patterns, he had forty seconds before the guards returned.
He reached the balcony, swung himself over, and crouched in the shadows just as a guard turned the corner, walked past, and continued into the grounds.
The French doors of the balcony were locked. The interior lights were low, the room empty. He peered inside, saw no sign of Luthor. On the other side of the mansion, the observatory dome was cracked open, and the telescope within was pointed toward the starry sky.
Removing a diamond glass cutter from his belt, he scribed a circle in the inset glass near the lock and easily removed the cut section of the French door. He slithered his hand inside and turned the lock, then quietly swung open the door. He felt like James Bond infiltrating the headquarters of SPECTRE. But this was not a spy novel—this was real.
He would search the offices quickly, take what he needed, and get back out. Since this was Luthor’s inner sanctum, past the gauntlet of security measures and a veritable army of guards, Luthor would be most confident of himself here. He had left important papers, files, and objects right there on the desk.
After tonight, Luthor would likely be even more paranoid.
Sifting through the memos with gauntleted hands, looking at folders and labels, he sorted out what he needed. The more he saw, the deeper the conspiracy went. He found files on each member of his board of directors, records of their indiscretions, specific descriptions of how each man had been turned into a LuthorCorp puppet, along with notes on the technical data and prototypes they had smuggled to Luthor.
With soft clicks of his miniaturized camera, he photographed everything.
After he viewed the next files, his anger grew. The Wayne Enterprises designs that Bruce had quietly encouraged for the sole purpose of understanding Superman’s abilities—LuthorCorp had put the pieces together into a unified application. Luthor had developed a model of armored “battlesuits,” walking robotic armor shells with enhanced muscles, built-in weapons systems, even jetpacks for brief flights.
The battlesuit blueprints, though, had been piled to the left of the desk, as if some emergency had preempted all other concerns. The urgent work that occupied Luthor was a set of memos and classified dispatches, communiqués sent by courier to the White House, to the Air Force, to the chiefs of agencies not generally known to the public. The carbon copy of a memo addressed directly to President Eisenhower sat on top of the stack. Luthor demanded that the Air Force release his “private property” from a secret installation in the Nevada desert, a classified base that the memorandum called “Area 51.” Responses from the Air Force, even from Eisenhower, repeatedly denied any knowledge.
Very interesting…
Minutes ticked away. Glancing again around the office, he knew he should leave and not press his luck, but he felt violated and angry at how Luthor had taken advantage of a long-standing trust built into the corporate structure of Wayne Enterprises…how he had tried to bring down his father’s company. Lex Luthor’s schemes were like a set of Russian dolls, one nested inside another, inside another, on and on until any investigator would get lost.
One more thorough search of the office. Atop a sturdy file cabinet he found a small cubical lead box next to a stack of printouts, spectrographs, and filtered photos of a crystalline rock. The label on the lead box marked the specimen’s origin as Ariguska, Siberia.
With his attention to details, he noted the casual placement of the lead box and the unexpected clutter of the documents. The clues told him that Luthor had devoted a lot of recent attention to this specimen. He lifted the hinged cover on the lead box to reveal a baseball-sized fragment of a crystalline substance. The irregular-shaped rock emitted a faint emerald glow.
Though he had studied geology and could readily identify many types of gems, natural crystals, and igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock, he was totally unfamiliar with any substance such as this. A meteorite, perhaps?
He looked more closely at the analytical reports; LuthorCorp chemists had been unable to determine the mineral’s molecular structure. The energy readings, the radioactive emissions, and the character of its refracted light were all highly unusual. Luthor’s personal handwritten notes produced more questions than answers.
“Energy readings exotic, difficult to correlate. Nature of material conveys the possibility of chemical/radioactive power. How to release it? Mineral is unlike normal fissile material. Mutagenic properties—unknown, but likely. Possible uses? Not yet determined. Potential? Unlimited.”
More mysteries opening up like Russian dolls: Strange items being held by the government inside a secret military facility in Nevada. Battlesuit prototypes based on proprietary research and development done by Wayne Enterprises. Now a mysterious, energetic mineral specimen from Siberia….
Lex Luthor had already stolen so much from Wayne Enterprises, had whisked cutting-edge technological discoveries out from under Bruce Wayne’s nose. Though this intriguing green rock appeared to have nothing to do with the corruption of the board of directors, perhaps it was something that Wayne Enterprises should investigate as well. It was time to balance the scales.
He lifted the lead box from the top of the file cabinet to look at the mineral more closely.
Suddenly alarms shrieked, bells rang, and spotlights blazed all around Lex Luthor’s household.
CHAPTER 20
THE LUTHOR MANSION
SITTING IN THE QUIET DARKNESS OF HIS PRIVATE OBSERVATORY, Lex Luthor spent the evening in contemplation. He kept a blank notepad near the telescope’s eyepiece, both for astronomical observation and to record the innovative ideas that invariably popped into his head whenever he let his thoughts flow.
Tonight, though, Luthor remained angry and frustrated. He was not accustomed to people refusing to give him what he needed or wanted. Reasonable men did not turn down Lex Luthor’s requests—yet President Eisenhower had snubbed him. Who did the man think he was?
With the observatory dome cracked open and his sixteen-inch refractor telescope pointed to the sky, Luthor continued his study of the empty, threatening heavens. The evening was chilly, and he tightened his smoking jacket of patterned silk lined with baby seal fur.
He maneuvered the telescope into position. His personal calculations had provided tracking tables, so he knew exactly where and when the blip of Sputnik would cross the night sky. It was a fad these days for people to go outside with binoculars or little toy telescopes to search for the orbiting object. Each time the Soviet satellite crossed unchallenged over American airspace, Luthor considered it a provocation. He would keep watching the skies.
Time and again, the Soviet space program had proven its superiority. At one time, Luthor had invested in the U.S. space effort, had studied the progress of the Vanguard project, had met personally with Wernher von Braun—but it all disappointed him. Vanguard was supposed to have beaten the Soviets into space, but it was now overdue and over budget. And so Luthor chose not to bother with such bumbling bureaucracy. He had decided to do something on his own, using his Caribbean island base….
Now he peered into the eyepiece, adjusted the focus, and watched the stars in his field of view transform from fuzzy blobs into diamond sparkles. Sputnik would be along any moment now.
Emergency alarms startled him out of his reverie. Automatic lights blazed on in the observatory, temporarily blinding him, but Luthor was already on his feet. He recognized the pitch of the sirens, knew the location of the clanging bells. This was no bumbling intruder at the outer fences; it was an inner-perimeter security breach. He snatched up the master Handie-Talkie and held the transmit button. “Report! What’s happened?”
“Intruder, Mr. Luthor,” Bertram replied crisply.
“I know that! Have you caught him yet?”
“No, sir. We’re making our way to your study now.”
Luthor was already bolting from the observatory, astonished that anyone would dare do this to him. Such a person would have to be suicidal. “Make certain he’s alive when you apprehend him—I may wish to do some of the questioning myself. No need to inform the police.”
He’d reached his office by the time the first security squads converged there, but the intruder had already fled. Luthor scanned his desk, saw that papers had been moved, noted the circle of glass cut out near the French door lock. A chair had been overturned, presumably as the burglar made his rapid escape.
With sick dread, he jerked his head so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. The lead box
containing the green mineral from General Ceridov’s quarry was gone.
Astonishing—and baffling. How could any corporate spy have known about that? He dashed onto the balcony, spied the grappling hook still anchored on the balustrade. The entire property was bathed in searchlights.
Shouts from the grounds now, then barking dogs. They would tear the man apart and probably leave little for interrogation…or even identification. Luthor suddenly caught sight of a shadowy figure in a dark cape—some sort of costume?—racing along, dodging nets and spotlights, leaping expertly over land mines and trip wires, easily maneuvering through the deadly obstacle course. Whoever this man was, this burglar, this spy, he knew Luthor’s mansion and property down to the tiniest detail.
An explosion sounded, accompanied by an eruption of dirt and smoke: One of his own guards had not been so adept at avoiding the land mines. Luthor made a disgusted sound; they could pick up the bloody pieces of the clod later.
“Hurry, he’s getting away!”
The intruder kept running.
CHAPTER 21
THE LUTHOR MANSION
KAL-EL FLEW OVER METROPOLIS, HIS RED CAPE FLUTTERING in the breeze. Below, he saw nighttime traffic lights and the winking glimmers of bright skyscraper windows, people attending shows, dining in restaurants, seeing motion pictures. Staring at the kaleidoscope of night life, he tried to imagine how magnificent Krypton must have been, how exotic, how spectacular. But Earth was his planet now, and these were his people.
He needed to make sure that Lex Luthor did not pose a danger to them.
Kal-El himself had seen clear evidence of LuthorCorp planes chasing the mysterious alien saucer. He wanted to look the man in the eye and ask him why. If he had tried to do so as Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet, he would have gotten nowhere. As Superman, however, he could not be ignored.
Enemies & Allies: A Novel Page 11