The following week, Lois was writing up a story late in the afternoon when Clark sat down on the edge of her desk. She finished typing the thought she had, then looked up at him.
<Yummy>
"What can I do for you, Mr. Kent?"
"I have an idea I want to run by you. I got a tape from a source this morning. I haven't viewed any of it, but from Ahmad's description, there may be a story."
Lois looked to the conference room. It was in use for a late meeting of the sports staff. Clark followed her eyes, and then, before he could stop himself, said, "Why don't we grab some takeout and head to my apartment to watch it. If you don't mind working for a bit more today..."
Lois smiled. Maybe soon he would be able to invite her over without needing work as an excuse.
"Ok, let me close up and I'll drive us both over. I'm not getting very far on this invisible Robin Hood investigation, anyway."
During the drive to Clark's apartment on Clinton Street, they had an intense discussion on what they should have for supper. One thing they had found in common was a love of exotic food. Clark suggested an Indian restaurant down the street from his apartment, and Lois readily agreed.
"Let's order from my apartment, then I'll go pick it up after we look at this tape, ok?" Clark asked as they approached his building.
Lois agreed. She parked efficiently in the only spot on the street, got out, and grabbed her bags from the back of her Jeep.
"Lois, do you want me to carry one of them for you?"
Shaking her head quickly, she answered, "Nah, the backpack isn't too heavy, and the other is just some comfy clothes. I hope you don't mind if I change? I've been in nylons all day and am *dying* to get out of them." Lois was pleased to see the color this statement brought to Clark's face.
Clark unlocked his front door and stepped aside, gesturing for Lois to precede him. Stepping slowly through the door, she paused to take it all in.
There were shelves of books, pictures, knickknacks... Somehow, though, it all seemed male. Settled, but male. It seemed like a home.
In fact, it was more of a home than she had, and he'd only lived here for a few months, having traveled for years before that. She guessed that just proved that some people had a nesting instinct, while others did not.
"Nice place," she said aloud, turning and smiling at him. "Where's the bathroom?"
Clark grinned.
"What? I drink a lot of water for dietary reasons, and now, well... I have to go. Are you laughing at me?"
Pursing his lips to stop smiling, Clark led her down the steps to the main living area of his apartment. "Of course not. The bathroom is off of the bedroom, through there," He waved in the general direction she needed to go, and she was off. Watching her hurry off, he couldn't hold the laugh back anymore. He headed to the kitchen to get the restaurant menu.
As soon as she had relieved her needs, washed her face and hands, and changed her clothes, Lois took stock of her make-up in the bathroom mirror. Normally, she wouldn't put any cosmetics on in the evening, but she couldn't help wanting to look her best. As she finished putting on some light powder and lipstick, curiosity got the better of her. She opened the medicine cabinet.
It was empty.
Oh, he had a toothbrush, some floss, some mouthwash, some aftershave.
But that was all.
No razor, no band-aids, no cough syrup. Nothing. Her brow knotted in thought. She looked around the room. There were no other storage places - the sink was a pedestal sink, and there was no closet.
Strange.
Shaking her head, she put all of her things into her bag and walked back out to the living room.
"How can you not even have aspirin?" She blurted out and then blushed, realizing she was confessing to rummaging through his medicine cabinet.
"I, uh, keep all my stuff in my travel case. Old habit, I'm afraid. Did you need some?" He should have realized that he would need to be more careful about keeping up normal appearances, especially with her around. Potholders - he would have to remember to get some potholders.
"No, I don't need anything. Just being nosy. Did you know that 75% of people admit to looking in their host's medicine cabinet at parties? I read that on an email once. Never figured most people were as nosy as I am. Hey, is that the menu? I'm starved."
Clark looked on in wonder as this tornado-disguised-as-a-woman babbled through several conversation topics in less than twenty seconds. As she pondered the menu, she chewed on her bottom lip, drawing his eyes there. The smile left his face as he watched, fascinated. The 'guy' part of him knew he was being sappy, but he couldn't seem to help himself. He was lost in the wonder of watching her.
"I think I'll have the lamb saag. You're getting the baingan bhartha? Do you want to get naan and raita? Ooh, and mango lassis and gulab jamun, too!"
"Wouldn't be a complete feast without them. I thought I'd get the appetizer mix, too. I'm starving." <Untangling that pileup on the DC beltway and flying directly to stop a fire in Pittsburgh seems to have used up a bit of my reserve.>
"Me, too. Forgot to eat lunch. Did you catch any while you were out?" Lois asked, with curiosity. She really wanted to know where he was being paged to all the time, but wasn't quite bold enough to ask him straight out.
"Umm, no. I didn't. Let me order this." He picked up the phone before she could start asking the questions he saw in her eyes.
When the food had been ordered, the price tallied, and Lois had given him enough money to cover half the bill (even though Clark insisted he'd eat more than half the food), Clark put the video into his player and turned the television on.
"A few years ago, on my first visit to Metropolis, I saw a taxi driver being beaten up by a few people. I guess that I let my sense of justice drown out my logic, because I waded into the fight and broke it up. For some reason, I was able to stop the fight, and the driver, Ahmad, felt that I saved his life."
"You probably did." Shaking her head, Lois could just imagine the scene. Clark, wading into a fight, saving a man he didn't know, just because. He was, after all, that kind of guy.
"Anyway," Clark continued, "whenever I'm in need of a taxi, I make sure to ask for him as a driver. He's always asking me over to his house for a meal - since I insist on paying for his taxi service. Ahmad has two older sons, and he's trying to bring them and their families to this country, so he can use every fare he gets. We've become friends, in a casual sort of way, and he trusts me."
Lois nodded. "You're a trustable kind of guy, Clark."
Brushing that aside, Clark sat on the couch next to Lois. "Ahmad came to this country with two of his brothers a few years ago. Since then, his elder brother has gone back home to Pakistan. His younger brother, Oman, stayed here. But Oman doesn't seem to be adapting to the American life as Ahmad is. Ahmad is afraid that his brother is involved in something that is evil - his word, not mine." Clark held his hands up, wanting to make it clear that he wasn't judging Oman.
"What kind of stuff is he into?" Lois asked
"According to Ahmad, Oman belongs to a fundamentalist Islamic group. They preach intolerance of just about everything. Oman only tolerates Ahmad because they're brothers. So, Oman keeps contact with Ahmad, sharing meals once in a while, though he won't share living quarters with Ahmad anymore."
Clark pushed play on the remote, and watched the blank screen. "Ahmad hasn't heard from his brother for a few weeks, so he went to Oman's apartment. While he was trying to find a clue as to where Oman had gone, he found this tape. Ahmad called me yesterday, asking me to investigate this group. He said they look dangerous. For him to contact me, possibly getting his brother in trouble, he must be really worried."
Lois nodded, following Clark's explanation.
The tape was a blurry, amateur grade film. It looked like a meeting of some sort. It was all in a language that was not discernible to Lois, though she believed it would be Arabic of some sort. But, the fire with which the men spoke and the looks of hatred and anger in their eyes made Lois think that Ahmad would be right to be worried if his brother were involved with men such as these.
"Do you understand this, Clark?" Looking up at Clark, Lois noticed that he was studying the screen with a look of disbelief on his face.
"Yes. They're saying that it is time for the infidels to pay. That the day of purification will come, and it will be a test of fire and water as the prophet has spoken. Though I don't think they're talking about Mohammad, here. Perhaps they have their own prophet on staff."
Lois laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, that sounds like prime mind-bending cult material to me. Does it sound like they actually have a plan to mete out this payment? Or the typical 'You'll See, God's Gonna Get All You Sinners' rhetoric?"
Clark shook his head. "No, they're talking very loosely about how the purification will come. But... there," he paused the screen, and pointed to one man who didn't seem to fit with the rest. He dressed as the others, but his clothes were crisp, where theirs were threadbare and dirty. He wore the requisite facial hair, but his was neatly trimmed. "He's a westerner. I'd bet the farm on that. Yet here he is, in this meeting."
Lois studied the man pointed out. He looked familiar, in a strange way. But she was almost certain she'd never seen him before. She nodded. "You're right. He doesn't fit. Can you translate for me fully?"
"Yeah, I can do that. It's mostly religious fervor and babble. Let me rewind and I'll go through it with you."
He translated the text, much of which was incoherent. But some of it seemed very well thought out. The leader referred once to the Western man as Lord Chronos. It seemed that Lord Chronos had offered his services and some of his weapons expertise, to help the group meet their ends. They were at that moment planning to put people in the proper places to use the weapons.
"I say we lift this Chronos guy's picture and match on it. I assume Chronos is a false name - Chronos is like, what, time or something?" Lois was making mental notes as she wondered aloud.
"Yeah, I think Father Time is also known as Chronos," Clark agreed. "That makes me think even more that he's probably not an Arab."
"Clark, do you know the date this was made?"
"It's marked for three months ago on the outside of the tape. But that doesn't mean anything."
"Well, we have to assume that they're proceeding with their plans… though they're so vague here…" she paused, chewing on her lip.
"Do you think that Ahmad could identify any of the rest of the people in this video? Is his brother there?" Lois asked.
"No, his brother isn't there. Ahmad told me that much. He just wants to find his brother, and keep him safe. I think he would have told me if he recognized anyone." Clark rewound the tape again, trying to catch one face more closely.
"This guy is very familiar," Clark said, thinking, as he pointed to the main speaker. Booting his computer, Clark opened a web search page. "I might be wrong, but look, the main speaker looks an awful lot like this man, Momar Abdulla. He's one of the leaders of Pan Arab Jihad."
Lois walked over to the monitor and peered at the picture on it. There was no way to tell for sure, but it could be.
"Clark, I think this tape should be turned over to the authorities. I'm not one to turn over stuff to them lightly, but this could be bigger than we can handle."
Clark looked down at Lois. For her to be passing on a potential scoop meant something in that tape scared her. It scared him, too.
He nodded. "Yeah. I don't want to take any chances that this is real. Let me make two copies - one for you and one for me. Better, I'll make a digital copy, so that we can scan stuff into the computer more easily." He set up the copy, and sat down on the couch. Looking up at the clock, he realized how much time had passed.
"I don't know how much more we can do tonight. I have some contacts who might take this tape seriously - we can call them tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, let me go get our supper."
"Supper? I always call it dinner. Do you usually call it supper?"
Smiling, Clark put his thumbs in his back pockets, and rocked back on his heels. He adopted his best hick-country voice to answer, "Yes, ma'am. We country folk call them breakfast, dinner, and supper. You city folk call them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't rekon' it matters, as long as you get three squares."
Lois laughed and playfully swatted at Clark's arm. "Oh, get out there and get my food, you cretin. I'm still starving. I'll do some more searches on that Chronos guy while you're gone."
Clark grabbed his keys and coat, locking the door on his way out. Lois pulled up some search engines and logged in to the Daily Planet database. Frustrated that all she could seem to find were business references, software references, and a handful of references to some television show called The Highlander, she allowed her eyes to roam more directly around the room.
Turning her attention to the bookshelf that lined one wall, she scanned the titles. It was an eclectic mix - even more so than her own collection was! It was certainly more ordered. Here was the fiction - mixing classics like Austen and Tolstoy with science fiction, fantasy, mystery - just about any genre you could name was represented. She was pleased to see some well-worn copies of Sheri Tepper books on the shelf. Some books were in foreign languages and scripts; some looked as though they might be collectors' items. All looked read. The non-fiction section had a very well used Britannica, several reference books, a huge section on UFO's - must be a hobby for Clark.
Smiling, Lois shook her head and pulled out one of the UFO books. Why on Earth would Clark be interested in this stuff? Reminding herself that she had a much-scorned collection of historical romances and that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, she replaced the tome and turned her attention to the knickknacks scattered in front of the books. There were examples of several different cultures, spanning all of the populated continents.
A mask - beautiful and terrible all at the same time - rested on one shelf. Was it from Africa? South America? It probably had value as art, but also likely, it had personal value to Clark. A bonsai tree on one shelf, an African Violet on another shelf. A softball sized globe - etched in glass - sat incongruously on a crudely shaped wooden stand. She supposed that represented the whole of Clark Kent's adventures in some symbolic or metaphoric way…
And, her jealous eye noted, there was only a very fine layer of dust on everything. He was tidy *and* clean.
Finally, her eyes lighted on a shelf of framed pictures. These weren't like the framed landscapes she saw scattered on the walls of the apartment - Clark was a pretty decent amateur photographer. These were of people.
Here, a blonde bride smiled as she hugged the man who seemed to be a slightly shell-shocked groom. There were pictures of families in remote areas - friends Clark had made on his travels? One precious photo showed a younger Clark with two middle-aged people.
Lois picked up the picture to study it more closely, searching for a resemblance between Clark and the older couple. Were they his parents? Friends? Her vivid imagination was weighing the possibilities when Clark came back with bags of steaming-hot food.
She replaced the picture and looked up at him before he had the chance to hide the bleak look in his eye. Before she could decide whether to prod or not, he answered her unspoken question.
"They were my parents. My adopted parents. They were killed… a long time ago. Bank robbery - they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You still miss them," Lois stated, understanding the sadness and isolation just a little more. It also explained the cold anger in his eyes when they had talked about the MNC robbery earlier - that had hit a target close to home for him.
Blinking, he shook his head of the memories. "I miss them every day. They were the best. The best parents, the best people… I only wish I could say that they were my best friends, too. I know if they had been around longer, I would have seen them not just as my parents but as my friends." His voice was tinged with regret.
"Still," Lois murmured as she walked to him, "you should remember how lucky you are to have had them at all. Some people don't have parents that are nearly that great."
The bitterness underlying her voice shook something inside Clark. He had heard some rumors of Lois's family - her overbearing father, her demeaning mother - but he tended not to give much credence to gossip, having been the butt of too many rumors himself.
"That video must have put us both in a funk, Clark." Shaking her head, Lois broke the awkward silence. "Why don't we dig into this feast you've brought back and talk about something happy. We are, after all, off the clock now."
Nodding, Clark took the bags to the table. They steamed as he opened them, and the scents took him to a place far away in his memory. Lois noted the look in his eye, and her reporter's instincts took over.
"You've been to India, right?"
"Yeah, I was in that area for about a year and a half. I spent some time in Kashmir, some time in Bangalore, even a few weeks in Nepal, interviewing people who climbed Everest. Then I went to China for a while…"
Even as she shook her head, Lois smiled. She scooped some of the fragrant food up with bread as she shared her thoughts. "You're what, two years older than I am? Yet you've lived all over the world - Asia, Africa, Europe, Kansas…"
"I wouldn't exactly say I've *lived* all over, Lois," Clark stated with a bit of sadness in his voice. "I've *been* all over, but to truly live somewhere, you have to put down roots. I've been really, really good at avoiding ties over the years. You and Jimmy are the first friends I've had since college."
"Now *that* is pathetic. No friends? Who are the people in those pictures?" Lois gestured to the frames she had studied before. "Clark, you're the kind of person who would have to beat off potential friends with a club." Waving her bread at him, she continued her tirade. "You're unfailingly polite, unflinchingly loyal, almost obnoxiously nice, and damn good to look at. Now stop talking like Eeyore and tell me about some of your adventures." With that, Lois took a big bite of Tandorri chicken and raised a challenging eyebrow in Clark's direction.
"Eeyore?!" Even as he tried to sound insulted, Clark couldn't keep the humor out of his voice. This woman never failed to surprise him.
"Yeah, that donkey from Winnie the Pooh. You know, the one whose tail keeps falling off? 'Ho Hum, My Life Sucks'," Lois rolled her eyes as she mimicked the crestfallen cartoon character. Clark burst out in laughter, and Lois eyed him appreciatively. "You should do that more often."
His laughter ending abruptly, Clark thought about what Lois had said. She had said he was good to look at. *Damn* good to look at. And she seemed to be flirting with him. Maybe life wasn't so bad after all.
*****
Clark was typing at his desk when his phone rang. He ignored it momentarily while finishing his thought, then answered it, distracted.
"This is Clark Kent. Hey, Sal," his voice became more focused, as he recognized the voice his friend, Sal Cantori. Sal worked for the CIA, though Clark had no idea what he did, exactly. Clark simply knew that Sal would get the disturbing tape into the right hands, so he had sent a copy two days previously.
"Got some questions for you, buddy," Sal stated.
"Shoot."
"Where'd you get that tape? Big brother wants to know."
"Come on, Sal, you know a reporter never reveals his sources."
"Dude, you can tell me, or you can tell the agents who are going to be calling you up in about two minutes. I passed the tape to my boss yesterday, and this morning he called me in to his office - there were high-ranking guys from at least two different areas asking for details. I had to give them your name, man. Sorry."
"It's not a problem. I just don’t have a lot of information on the source of the tape."
Listening to one side of the conversation, Lois cocked her head in question. Clark shook his head in reassurance.
"Well," Sal said, "I just hope they don't try to link you with this crap. All those travels into communist countries and such tend to make some label you as an enemy of the state, whether you are or not."
Clark sighed. It had been a rough interview in Metropolis International Airport customs six months ago. He supposed he could have used the other means at his disposal to travel, but he liked to leave a legitimate trail whenever he could. It made for slow going sometimes, but his parents had ingrained in him at an early age the importance of *looking* normal. As a result, he had lots of passport stamps. That fact made the INS and the CIA and all the rest of those ominous lettered organizations interested in him. He imagined every article he had ever written was in a file somewhere…
It was nice to know someone was keeping a scrapbook.
"Thanks for the warning. The truth shall keep me free, I'm sure," Clark murmured with no small amount of irony in his voice.
"It's not a good time, man. There's lots of crap on the wind - terrorists under every rock. After they botched it up when they bombed the World Bank and Trade Headquarters in Metropolis two years ago, we've been trying to find the other shoe before it drops. Being the source of this tape, which has several of our top ten Public Enemies on it, just put a big ol' bullseye on your back, buddy."
Sighing again, Clark rubbed his hand on his forehead.
"OK, Sal. I hear you. Thanks for the heads up. I'll let you know how it turns out."
As he hung up the phone, Clark looked over to Lois. She was watching him with interest.
"Trouble?"
"Seems that even if we didn't recognize the faces on that tape, other people did. I still think we did the right thing turning it in, but now it looks as though I'm under suspicion for being the source of the tape."
"What?!" Lois's voice raised in outraged disbelief. Clark could see her Don Quixote complex coming to the surface, and government security agents were the windmills she had in mind. He held up his hands to try to calm her.
"That was my buddy, Sal - the agent that I gave the tape to. He just wanted to tell me that the tape shook some things up, and that I should be careful, because of my checkered traveling past. No one's accusing me of anything."
"Yet," Lois mumbled with a dour look in her eye.
At that moment, Clark's phone rang. When he answered it, he found his friend Sal's prediction had come true. He was politely asked to clear his calendar for an afternoon interview with several international security specialists. Clark returned the frosty politeness and agreed to present himself that afternoon.
When he put the phone back in the cradle, he looked up at Lois.
"I'm going to take care of some business this morning. I'll get in contact with Ahmad and ask him if I can mention his name. I hope he agrees to cooperate - but I have a feeling that he won't want to. He'll be afraid of deportation. Will you be ok finishing up the follow-up story on the background of Henry Barnes?"
Before Lois could answer, Clark rolled his eyes, sighed, and looked down at his beeper.
"What?" Lois asked.
"Gotta go. I'll talk to you in a bit." Clark turned and jogged to the stairwell.
Lois shook her head. He never gave explanations, never gave excuses; he simply left whenever his beeper called.
Narrowing her eyes, Lois turned back to her desk. Calling up an application she and Jimmy had put together, she tried to track down a beeper registered to Clark Kent. She couldn't find the number - even though she was supposedly linked to several different telecom databases (she never asked Jimmy how legal it was - it worked and had helped her track down people before). She searched in all the ways she could think, and still no results.
If it wasn't his beeper, whose was it? Where exactly was her partner being called off to? Leaning back in her chair, she drummed her fingers on her desktop. She knew that Clark had cleared his strange work hours with Perry - as long as he finished his assignments and clocked at least 37.5 a week, Perry didn't care where Clark went. At the Planet, one of the perks of being a talented, experienced reporter was that the boss gave you lots of leniency. Lois understood that, because she often had the same advantages.
But she didn't know of anyone who used them quite as much as Clark did.
Her curiosity about his disappearances was becoming unbearable, and the closer she and Clark became, the more he shied away from talking about it. If she had suspected even remotely that he was doing something wrong, or that he was in trouble of some sort, she would be investigating for all she was worth. But Clark was a friend, and Lois reigned in her interest, telling her suspicious inner voice to can it. Trust was earned, and it was a two way street. She would get Clark to open up about the beeper on his own.
Still, closing the phone finder program was one of the hardest things she did that day.
