ToC - for previous parts.
Well, here we go. A little early in the morning, but I didn't think anyone would mind
Thanks for all the comments and especially to my beta readers!
Waking a Miracle -- (13/??)
The ride to Burton Newcomb's was interminable. Every once in a while, Lois would sneak a glance over to her left, only to find Clark staring back at her with an eager, yet broken look, hands clasped in his lap and his shoulders slumped in solemn acceptance.
She shifted and looked back out the window, observing the people scurrying past like ants. A man at a hotdog stand, chunky lime-green relish dripping down his front, was screaming at a young boy. An overwhelmed dog walker trying to manage about seven dogs was being pulled along more than she was walking. A crew of thirty or so touring, uniformed children trailed behind a teacher that looked like she was going to commit mass homicide. Two wildly gesticulating men were arguing beside a pair of crunched up sports cars.
She sighed as the scenery flew past. The horizontal blur came into focus every few minutes as their cab was forced into a halt and the driver hurled numerous obscenities at whatever poor soul or object happened to be the obstruction.
She knew Clark wanted to talk about last night, but she just didn't want to hear about it right now. She didn't want to hear Claude's speech regurgitated all over again. "Mon trésor," he had slurred after that awful night, when she had gone to him in the newsroom, trying to find out why. "No offense to you, but you are very, comment dit-on cela? Bad. Très mauvais."
She had wanted to ask why her story was on the front page, staring back at her in ugly bold print with Claude's byline. Not why he had left in the morning, but the tears had stung too badly, and she had fled. Lois Mad Dog Lane, had fled the newsroom amidst a flurry of chuckles and harsh, judging stares. Men high-fiving.
Ever the father figure, and always aware of what was going on in his bullpen, Perry had later tried to cheer her up with some god-awful Elvis analogy. Something to the effect of, "Even Pricilla said Elvis wasn't a pro from time to time, but that doesn't mean what she said was remotely true." Suffice it to say, his words hadn't really helped, and she'd left his office mortified.
She blinked away the memories, trying to ignore the sting of tears. She didn't want or need to hear Clark's explanation, she'd heard it all before. She scared them away. Not only was she too interested in work, she was horrid at ... other things.
She sighed, remembering Clark's horrified eyes when she started to ask about Trask. His look of sickness after she had kissed him. That was definitely a doomed relationship right there. She made him *gag*. Well maybe not gag, but he hadn't looked happy. Hadn't stayed. Run away just like Claude, although with a bit less humiliation on her end. At least they hadn't gone *that* far -- thank the Lord for small favors.
From Clark's stare of oblivion, however, it seemed as though they had.
She could feel his eyes on her, shameless and unending in their observation. His gaze still seemed to have the ability to speed up her heart and make her feel incredible, in a knees-wobbling, light-headed way. Salmonella? Hah.
What *was* it with that man. He was so unlike anyone she had ever met before. She heard him sigh and snuck another glance his way. He had finally stopped looking at her and was leaning his forehead against the window with his eyes closed. Fog clawed out along the glass from his slightly parted lips with each soft exhale.
The cab screeched to a halt and the driver screamed something horrible as a bicyclist scurried across the crosswalk in front of them, returning a rather rude gesture. The light was red, but it didn't seem to matter to the cabbie. She rolled her eyes and returned her gaze to Clark's face.
He hadn't opened his eyes during the cabbie's verbal assault, although she saw the muscles in his face twitch and his breathing went slightly uneven, as though the cabbie's loud voice had physically hurt him. Sensitive ears, maybe? He had commented earlier that the city was a loud place. "It *is* a bit noisy here," he had murmured. She had felt something then. Grasped at some larger truth, but it was gone now, and she couldn't even remember what had triggered it.
An unruly, loose lock of black hair hung over his forehead, making him look small and alone, like a young boy, despite his sheer size. Although not bulky, he was not a slight man by any stretch of her active imagination. But innocent? Yes, she suspected he was indeed that. Not so much in a sense of not having seen the world, or some of the horrors in it. The dim look that invaded his eyes at times told her he had seen that much and more, and he had certainly traveled, but rather his innocence came from the fact that he didn't seem to have a cruel bone in his body. He was a genuine nice guy.
And that's what made her feel worse. She'd effectively scared off the only decent guy she'd met in a long time, if ever. She didn't know how she knew he was clean, but she did. And the damage was done. She'd gone after him like an interview subject. She'd brought work into the bedroom, so to speak, like a complete, sexless dope. And she'd paid the awful price.
And even despite all the complications that her innate curiousity had brought her, she still couldn't help but wonder. Clark seemed to be a straight arrow. His overall persona was about as mild-mannered and unassuming as they came.
Which brought about the question, once again -- what the heck did he have to do with a potential black-ops... potential... secret agent man? She slammed the brakes on the tune that threatened to explode into her head and continued to think. So she didn't have much as far as actual proof of wrong-doing yet. Well, actually all she had was evidence that Thompson had visited a warehouse. Which, really, was hardly a crime. But it was an evil warehouse! She was sure. And, never mind that she'd only seen a photograph of Trask with Thompson and not much else. She *knew* there was something there, and boy was it frustrating to know Clark knew something he wasn't telling.
Watch the whole side-distraction of Trask be some hick family feud, she thought with rue. The Kents and the Trasks had had an argument about which cow, Bessie or Bonnie, had really deserved the blue ribbon at the 4-H fair. It had been a nasty altercation. Blood had been spilled. Ma and Pa Kent had gone after Jason Trask with pitchforks and 12-gauge shotguns, and Jason had vowed to never let the terror go unreturned.
More and more ludicrous scenarios began to traipse through her head, and she was helpless to swat them away.
"Oh, by the way, Lois," Clark would say with a mid-western twang. "Trask hates me because I told him he was wrong about his prediction that cow stocks were going up. We got into a bit of a row at the bar. Never mind this investigation."
She stared at Clark and tried to picture him driving some horrid, stereotypical, ready-to-collapse pickup truck, straw stuck between his teeth, Bessie moo-cheering in the background, and the grimace of revenge on his face spreading as he gunned the engine and darted for the unsuspecting Jason Trask.
Shaking her head, she stared at Clark's blank, slightly tense face. Hardly, she thought.
So maybe he *didn't* have something bad to say about last night. Did you think about that, Lane? Maybe he wants to explain why he flipped out on you. *Maybe* he's finally going to explain what the deal with Trask is!
Or maybe you've misread him completely and you're in for a world of hurt if you even acknowledge his existence.
It was a toss up.
"Oh, Clark," she whispered, but the sound of her voice was drowned in the steady thrumming of the heaters and the engine of the cab. Or so she had thought. Sensitive ears were apparently an understatement in his case.
Clark's eyes snapped open and he turned his head in her direction.
I wasn't staring, she immediately wanted to shout, but resisted the urge. Caught in the cookie-jar, she was. She felt her cheeks turning a dull shade of red, and her breath hitched sharply in her chest.
"Yes, Lois?" he said, eyebrows raised, staring at her with expectant, soulful brown eyes. His hand gripped the handle of the car so strongly she almost imagined she heard it groaning in protest. It was the 'you are my world' stare that she thought she wouldn't ever see again after last night.
Never mind yesterday, she wanted to scream. Take me, now! But as fast as she turned to Jell-O, however, she managed to solidify herself again. "Nothing," she muttered, and diverted her eyes.
Get a grip, Lane. *You* are strong. A loner. No need for Clark. No sir. Not friend. Friend not. What does it matter what he thinks? Go get a Kerth and do us proud.
"Lois, if you want to talk--"
No! ... Yes!
The cab, however, had its own designs on the course of this conversation, and screeched to a final halt right then. "We're here," the cabbie growled, and leaned his hand over the back seat, wiggling his chubby fingers indicate he was waiting for payment.
Clark immediately leaned forward went for his wallet, which he kept in his back pocket, but she beat him to it -- all praise the side-carrying purse. She whipped out a twenty and slapped it into the cabbie's waiting clutches.
The man didn't appear happy with the small tip, but he wisely said nothing as she scooted out across the gutter and onto the sidewalk, followed very shortly by Clark.
The neighborhood was sound enough, although that wasn't saying much considering this was Metropolis. Lois lived in one of the reputed safer areas, and she couldn't recall a month where the cops weren't in her building for some reason or another. And that was despite the door security, and despite Mick, the hired rent-a-cop that patrolled on a semi-semi-semi-regular basis when there wasn't some sort of sporting event on the little television in his disgusting closet of an office. Lord, that place had been atrocious the one time she'd had to foray into it to inquire about whether her lost set of spare keys had been picked up. Wrappers and magazines. Everywhere. The security monitors barely poked through from under the heap of junk. "Oh, by the way," she had muttered on her way out, "Does a Neanderthal do your cleaning?" Suffice it to say, Mick became even more rare of a fixture in her life after that.
The actual apartment building was somewhat small, and homey looking. The lawn, although tiny, was attractive. If you were anal-retentive... On either side of the walk to Newcomb's building the grass was cut to a meticulous three quarters of an inch, and ankle-high, red ornamental bushes sprouted up from the manicured mulch piles that embraced the building.
They walked up the landing, Clark trudging dutifully along behind her as she pressed forward. The door didn't open at her insistence, even when she yanked on its chipped handle. She cursed and gave it another pull. The door slammed and jolted loudly on multiple deadbolts, but otherwise didn't budge.
Clark, however, had found the intercom to the left. The pale plastic of the device was discolored and stained, and the speaker was dangling in the precarious grip of several different colored wires. It was making a dull clicking noise, sort of like a Geiger counter, and it took very little imagination to picture sparks fluttering down in the breeze.
Quick, she wanted to blurt, cut the blue wire or she'll blow!
She rolled her eyes. "They can't possibly expect us to communicate with that heap of garbage," she growled.
Clark shrugged and pressed the button. He leaned in a little, jerking as if he didn't really know how close to get. "Clark Kent and Lois Lane to see Burton Newcomb..." Silence. "Please?"
"See? Farmboy has to learn," she sneered.
Clark grinned. "Well what do you suggest, Hardened City Woman?" He mimed a bow of worship.
"Watch and learn," she retorted as she shoved past him to the device and pressed the button.
"Hey!" she shouted. She saw Clark wince at her sudden change in volume, but ignored it. "Cloth ears! Open the door before I have your security badge on a platter! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to have such a despicable excuse for an intercom? You could get fined for this! What if I were a police officer or an EMT responding to an emergency? You wouldn't know, would you? In fact you probably can't tell that I'm calling you a moron, now can you?"
"Lois--"
"A MORON, you hear? Hey! The building is burning down! Oh no! This--"
The intercom made some sort of fuzzed, electronic mumble that sounded like a cross between Chewbacca and a dying cat, and the door locks clicked open.
She beamed at Clark. "See? Consider this a life lesson. No charge!"
"I'll keep it in mind," he replied wryly.
The door opened into a small foyer with a receptionist desk off to the right and two elevators to the back. Inside, things were in much better shape than the intercom.
The receptionist, who Lois could only assume was the one who had buzzed her in, waved and smiled. "Hello!" the young blonde said, before resuming her perusal of some magazine that, from this distance, looked like Cosmo.
Clark waved back, but Lois just pushed onward towards the elevator. After pressing the button and waiting for a few moments, she thought better of it as the light that said 'seventh floor' took an eternity just to change to 'sixth floor.' She grumbled and whip-turned towards the doorway to the stairs. Newcomb was on the fourth floor of seven. Not a horrible climb by any means, and it wasn't like she was out of shape.
The stairwell smelled a little funny, sort of like a combination of rot, disinfectant, and a hospital all rolled in to one, but proved to be functional enough, and before long they were knocking on Newcomb's door.
An old, heavy-set man opened the door. His graying hair was still in a military buzz-cut, and his round face was framed by small gold wire-framed glasses. Clark should get wire frames, she thought offhandedly. They would look even better than the horn-rimmed ones he already had. Or contacts.
"Lois Lane, Clark Kent. We're here for the Daily Planet," she began. "I made an appointment with you yesterday."
The man who she presumed to be General Newcomb nodded. "That was an interesting performance you did on the landing," he replied with a noncommittal grunt.
Lois heard Clark suppress a chuckle. "You *heard* that?" she asked, incredulous.
Newcomb directed them into a small, den-like room. There was a mahogany desk in one corner. Rifles, ammunition, and other military artifacts decorated a glass case near the window. But at the far end of the room there was a large set of security monitors that looked *much* more functional and state-of-the-art than the ones rent-a-cop Mick had. The images were sharp, and the middle one clearly showed the landing where they had been standing moments before.
"It pays to be informed." Newcomb gestured towards the monitors with an offhanded flick of his wrist before he sat down behind the desk.
Lois crept forward and placed her micro-recorder on the desk near a bowl of walnuts, and pointed to it as she turned it on, so he would know full and well she was recording what he was saying. She then sat back on a rickety wooden chair. Clark adjourned to the second seat, which was a duplicate of her own, but slightly off to the right.
Newcomb leaned back and folded his hands across his lap.
"As you know," Lois began, "George Thompson has been touring Metropolis the past few days as part of his campaign."
"Regrettable." Newcomb's tone was serious, without any hint of irony or intent of jocularity. Interesting. So. Newcomb either didn't like Thompson as a person or just didn't like him as a candidate. "What's that have to do with me?"
Lois raised an eyebrow. "We know you worked with him back when he was a member of Project Blue Book. You were his supervisor, weren't you?"
Newcomb looked straight at Clark with an unblinking gaze. Clark squirmed in his seat a little and shifted his legs. The chair creaked in protest. "Have either of you ever had to keep a secret? A *huge* secret?" Newcomb asked, his eyes never leaving Clark's withering form.
"Sure," Clark answered, as if he hadn't realized it was a hypothetical question. His voice contained uncharacteristic weakness of tone, and strain was evident on his features. Her partner looked at the floor.
Hmmm, her partner? That did have a nice ring to it, but-- His body language was just...
She turned fully towards him and he looked back up at her. "Like what, Clark?"
She didn't have to imagine the look of horror that flitted across his face. His eyes widened to the size of saucers, as if he had just now realized what a horrible verbal trap he'd sprung on himself. He quickly averted his gaze to the floor again and shrugged, noncommittal.
What. on. Earth?
"Keeping a secret eats away at you," Newcomb continued. He rose from his chair, no longer looking at Clark. He headed towards the window to peer out on the yard down below, and she suddenly wished the man had a pause button so she could keep pressing Clark.
Clark had been close. Close to revealing something then. She saw it. And Newcomb somehow knew he was hiding something. How was that, exactly? Clark hadn't even flinched at the picture with Newcomb in it. They couldn't have met before, could they?
No, Clark hadn't shown even a hint of fleeting recognition this whole time. They couldn't have.
She stared at Clark as Newcomb continued. "It's just a nibble at a time, but it adds up. And one day, you wake up and realize it's consumed everything inside you."
Clark wasn't showing recognition now. He was showing pain. Understanding. A sort of kindred spirit to Newcomb seemed to have taken control of his facial muscles.
She narrowed her eyes. Clark had a secret, mmm? Probably just the deal with Trask. But...
"We were just a small group when we started, but we all took special oaths on the same day. August the second, 1947."
She managed to tear her gaze from Clark. She was interviewing *Newcomb* here, not Clark. Clark could wait until they were done.
"You didn't take an oath to protect people like Thompson, did you?" she asked, as Newcomb ran his fingers along the latticework of the window. "We have suspicions that he's connected to the disappearance of the phenomenon we called Miracle Man, and possibly other crimes too numerous to count. Him, and a man named Jason Trask--"
"Lois--" Clark interrupted.
"What?" she snapped. "You have something to say? Say it!"
He shook his head.
"You know something, don't you General," Lois prodded, ignoring Clark's exasperated sigh. Whether he wanted her to or not, she was going to figure this out. It didn't matter to her if she had to drag Clark around like this for a month, she *would* figure this out. Nobody gave her a puzzle and then told her to back off. No way, no how. "What's Bureau 39? Who are these men, really?"
Newcomb turned back around from the window and collapsed back into the chair. With a low grunt, he leaned forward and grabbed her tape recorder. Before she realized what he was doing, he had pressed the stop button and had yanked the little tape out.
Then, he started reaching for the walnut dish. Oh, God. She realized with horror what he was intending to do with the tape, and leaned forward, trying to rescue it, a small squeal of protest falling from her lips like a rock climber that just couldn't hold himself to the mountain anymore. But she could see from his glare that her protests were in vain. He wasn't going to talk until -- *crunch*. The cassette shattered in the iron grip of the nutcracker. Little splintered bits of plastic went flying, and yards of thin, shiny tape spilled out onto the desk like guts.
Well, she thought with a pained wince, there went her notes for the week. Newcomb swept the mess aside into the wastebasket next to the desk. She was tempted to crawl forward and scoop it out, hoping something was salvageable, but thought better of it. If Newcomb was going to tell them something sensitive enough that the tape had to go off, well then, it would be worth it.
Yep. Worth it.
Convincing herself wasn't working, entirely. She winced again when she looked down at the trashcan.
"George Thompson has some unsightly skeletons in his closet."
That drew her attention away from the trashcan quite successfully.
"Really? What are they?"
Newcomb dodged the question. "But he's not the one you should be expending resources to find."
One look to her right revealed Clark appearing for all the world like he was being slowly boiled in oil as he shifted once again in his seat. His face was a rictus of regret and despair.
Just what are you getting yourself into, Lane? a tiny voice interjected, but she squelched it with a steel hand. This seemed to disprove the cow futures theory, quite definitively. No, this was big. And this was serious.
"Trask?" she asked, her voice low, just to confirm the inevitable.
"Find the connection between the two men, Miss Lane. Find that connection, and you may have your Miracle Man Pulitzer."
She gasped. She hadn't mentioned her intent to write that specific story. Had she? "How did you know--"
"You don't need my help for this," he cut her off. "I suspect the answer is hiding in plain sight."
And for the second time that day, Newcomb seemed to be staring so hard at Clark she half-expected rays to shoot out of his eyes and smite her partner where he sat. Clark slouched even further in his chair. And all at once, she wanted to leap from the chair and tackle him.
TELL ME!!!
Clark knew something. And Newcomb knew something. But she sure didn't.
The injustice of it all was typical, and infuriating.
"Like in that abandoned warehouse on Bessolo Boulevard?" she asked, grasping desperately for the connection that those two had already established but were refusing to tell her outright.
From the look Newcomb gave her, she could tell that wasn't it. He followed her lead, however, and she cursed herself for making the wrong guess. "If this warehouse is what you suspect it to be, it would no doubt be protected by an impenetrable security system." He raised an eyebrow, as if meaning to challenge her ability.
Hackles rising by the second, she countered, "Every system has a flaw."
"Not this one." Newcomb shook his head. "I designed it myself. You'd need someone on the inside, or someone who'd been on the inside, to help you out."
Oh. From the way Newcomb was talking, she doubted her lock-picking skills would come in handy in this instance.
But Newcomb wasn't done. "Now, assuming you could find such a person, you'd have to hope that person found a man like Trask so repugnant, and his methods so un-American, that he would choose to help you. That's a tall order."
Repugnant and un-American? She glanced again to Clark, who was looking more and more relieved that Newcomb seemed to be unwilling to assist them, or give them any information that could remotely be classified as direct and to the point.
Oh, just you wait, Clark Kent. She glared at him, trying to beam her thoughts his way. After this was over, she was going to drag him into a conference room and duct tape him to a chair until he talked if she had to. Perry would support her, she was sure, as long as she didn't kill Clark in the process. Which wouldn't be too hard. She wanted him to suffer. A lot.
Newcomb rooted through the desk in front of him, pulling a small key-card out from the center drawer after some amount of searching. It was rectangular and white, and very thin. He flicked it in his hands before placing it not far from where her tape recorder had been before he'd ungraciously smashed its contents.
She eyed the card with hunger, but restrained herself from hopping out of the chair to snatch it. That must be the key to the warehouse! She apparently didn't need to say "Swordfish" or some ridiculous password after all. Which was good, because she *really* hadn't felt like investing in a shotgun mike.
Newcomb got up from the chair and approached his small collection of artillery, running his hands wistfully along the metallic muzzles of a line of guns, until he arrived at a shotgun. He grabbed the stock and pulled it out with a small tug, his other hand going for the small box of shells.
Ummm.
What was he doing?
"I'm going to count to three. When I turn around, I expect you to be gone," he said as he pushed the first shell into the left chamber and cocked it.
Ohmygod. She glanced quickly to Clark, who seemed to be arriving at the same conclusions just a shade faster than she was. He launched off his chair and was immediately between her and the General.
"What are you doing?" Clark demanded.
Newcomb ignored him. "One."
She rolled her eyes as she leaned forward and shot her hand past his waist to grab the keycard and her defunct recorder. She heard the gun cock again, and concluded that there was little doubt the thing was fully loaded now.
Which was bad.
"Two."
Her heart was racing. She tugged on the back of Clark's sport jacket and they both turned and fled.
"Three!" Newcomb shouted, just as Clark slammed the door behind them with a crashing thud, practically ripping the outside doorknob off. Air flew past her ears and she was breathless. The stairwell door got closer. Her heart thudded heavily in her ears.
"Plain sight, Miss Lane!" she heard the muffled cry through Newcomb's door as they flew into the stairwell and skated down the steps like a pair of bobsled runners.
Plain sight, Miss Lane. Plain sight. His words echoed over and over again in her head, bouncing around like a pinball against the sides of her skull.
As they came to a panting halt in the lobby, she looked at Clark again. He gave her a weak smile. "Well, that was interesting," he said. "Do your interviews usually go like that?"
The receptionist was looking at them oddly, but after a few moments of observation, went back to her magazine.
"No, Clark," she replied. "They really don't."
Plain sight, Miss Lane.
She crossed her arms over her chest and watched with a practiced eye as Clark led the way out of the lobby.
*****
TBC...
(End Part 13/??)
