The final two parts of this fic were always big and I've added a couple of scenes, so I've decided to divide the remainder into 3 parts.
Many thanks to Iolanthe Alias, who beta-ed this entire fic - including reading some bits of this part three times. Thanks for sticking with me.
Here's Part 5. My intention is to post Parts 6 and 7 close together.
From Part 4 ...
Lois closed her eyes and tried to calm the sledgehammers beating through her head. When they had become almost bearable, she opened her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the gloom. She slowly turned towards her companion, noting he was male, with dark curly hair and, like her, handcuffed to the wall. His head lifted and realisation dropped like lead in her stomach.
It was Franklin Hodge.
Lois closed her eyes, refusing to give in to the panic sweeping through her.
Franklin Hodge. The ‘Invisible Aide.’ The man with neither job description nor, as far as her extensive digging could uncover, a home address.
With Hodge here, this was big. This was no two-bit operation, no amateur crooks using the fact they worked for Luthor to carry out some minor swindle. This was big. So big, it possibly involved Luthor himself. And Lois had dropped herself right in the middle of it.
PART 5
Clark had just foiled another attempted burglary. That made two interrupted attempts and six arrests in less than two hours.
He was still dressed as Clark, although he wore the outfit underneath. Somehow every time he considered ditching the Clark clothes and announcing himself publicly, he found a way to influence the situation without his powers being too obvious.
He thought back an hour to when he had stood in front of a roomful of police, wearing the spandex, feeling like a sideshow attraction. Every eye had been fixed on him, full of scepticism, disbelief, curiosity and here and there, a touch of wonder. He’d kept his arms folded, his shoulders back, his head high and his voice deep … and somehow he’d got through it.
It *would* get easier. People *would* get used to seeing him. People wouldn’t gawk quite so much. OK, they probably would, but he would become accustomed to it.
But it didn’t sit well with his natural preference for being firmly in the background.
Which is what makes the secret identity perfect, Clark reminded himself.
“What’s going on, man?” Clark asked as he stood between the would-be burglar and his jewellery shop target.
“I need cash. I need it tonight.”
“But it’s not worth doing this.”
He shuffled out of Clark’s grip and sped away.
+-+-+-+
Luthor took a cigar from the case and inhaled along its length, savouring it. He lit it and drew in deeply as he settled into his leather armchair. His attention hadn’t wavered from the screen in front of him.
He smiled as he reflected on his second windfall. First Hodge, now Lois Lane. If anyone had information which could be manipulated to advantage, it was Hodge. If anyone could extract that information, it was Lane.
Carpe Diem.
At the very least, Luthor expected to know within five minutes whether today was the day he would sacrifice that pompous Englishman.
+-+-+-+
Franklin Hodge turned bodily towards Lois. She heard his quick intake of breath as if the movement had caused him pain. “Sorry,” he said.
Lois ignored him. Her head hurt too much to consider moving.
“I’m sorry,” Hodge said again.
She turned, very slowly. “For what?”
“For the bomb, for the truck and for being here now.”
Lois shot him a surly look. “You mean when you tried to kill me in S-?”
“I didn’t try to - ” He looked at the rough stone floor. “It was never my intention to kill you.”
“What bomb?”
Hodge raised his connected hands to the space between the side of his head and the wall. “At the paper. And I’m sorry for being here now.”
“Huh?” Her head hurt.
His index finger unfurled from its fist and brushed across his ear. “I’m probably the last person you want to spend your final ... you want to be with now.”
“My final ...?” Her trepidation oozed through another couple of layers of her insides. “You don’t think we’ll get out of this, do you?”
He rubbed his earlobe between his thumb and forefinger and made passing reference to his eye as his cuffed hands dropped back to his knees. “Sorry.” He was staring at her with exaggerated intensity.
Suddenly, Lois understood. He was warning her they were being both watched and heard. She fought and overcame the compelling temptation to search for cameras. “Don’t you have any...” She lowered her voice. “Spy tricks to get us out of here?”
Despondently, he shook his head.
“But someone knows you’re missing, right?”
Hodge looked at her with a strange, embittered expression. “Like a wife?” He laughed, the emptiest laugh she’d ever heard. “Not in my line of work.”
“Then what about ... whoever you work for?”
“Remember what I told you when you said I was evil?”
That he looked after the big picture. Clearly they were now the little picture ... or not even that. “They won’t care if you die?” Lois said in disbelief.
His eyes answered silently and her stomach compressed another notch. Was that for the camera? Or for real? Did he really think there was no hope of rescue? Or was he ensuring he didn’t alert someone else to the possibility of rescue? “It *looked* like you wanted to kill me,” she said reproachfully.
“Despite current appearances, I usually do my job well. Both times I had pre-planned and calculated to cause a diversion, not a death. I could give you the details, if you wanted.”
“You threatened a plane crash,” she said acerbically. “I suppose that was a diversion too?”
“No,” he said on a long sigh. “That was bluster.”
“You lied?”
Hodge looked sideways to the wall. “I was trying to impress you,” he mumbled.
“*You what?*” Her raised voiced reverberated around the closed-in space.
He shuffled, seeking a more comfortable position. “When you came and offered me the deal, I was so ... taken by your assurance, your forthrightness, your poise, your willingness to sacrifice your story for your friend ...” He dropped his head. “I’d become so caught up in the job ... I’d forgotten what real people are like.”
“Real people aren’t generally impressed by threats to blow up the plane they’re on.”
He acknowledged that wryly. “I wasn’t thinking too straight. It was that place. Some of the things that happened there ... I made fundamental mistakes.”
“Yeah.”
“It was like I lost my edge.”
“You too,” Lois muttered.
They fell silent. The next time Lois glanced at him, Hodge had closed his eyes. She had only been here a short time, yet already the hard floor and the restrictions imposed by the handcuffs had caused an achy numbness to begin to creep through her body. Hodge hadn’t said how long he’d been here, but being shackled like this would quickly become intolerable.
Lois stared into the emptiness and forced herself to think. More than think, she had to analyse. Piece by piece.
Who? Who had ordered her capture? Luthor? St John? Someone else? Who had something to fear from her finding the underground tunnel?
What? What were they doing? Something illegal, clearly – with both her and Hodge imprisoned. Clark’s map had the tunnels marked. The tunnel went from the warehouse to under Luthor’s building.
When? St John had said ‘why tonight?’
So something was happening in the tunnel, possibly tonight.
Who? It remained the biggest question.
Luthor or St John?
Luthor?
Surely not.
But Clark didn’t trust him. Clark had never trusted him.
But did she trust Clark’s instincts?
With a sudden incisive conviction, she knew.
Luthor, for all his generosity and community spirit had a dark side; a callous, evil underbelly. She pushed aside that revelation, mind-blowing though it was, and kept going.
If Clark *had* worked out what was happening tonight, would he have taken his suspicions to the police?
Probably.
Clark had a deep-seated respect for authority and generally believed the best of people.
So, she’d assume Clark was working with the police.
If something had been planned for tonight, they would be desperate for it to go ahead.
Lois groaned inwardly. Although she knew almost nothing, her presence in the tunnel would surely jeopardise any plans.
Was there *any* way to undo the damage?
She would be flying blind. She didn’t know enough to be able to judge whether she would make a bad situation worse. She didn’t know who was listening. Nor what he was planning. Nor how her presence had affected those plans.
But she had to do *something*.
Her mind conceived the germ of an idea. This had been Clark’s investigation from the start. He was new to Metropolis, few would know his background. She knew from when she’d opened his internet history in Smallville that he visited a lot of foreign local information sites. Maybe he’d travelled. St John was English. How could all these snippets be tied together into something believable? Something useful?
She needed to get Hodge talking. About what? She could hardly just blurt out ‘Luthor’s such a good guy, I’m sure no one suspects him of anything’.
Their common reference point was Smallville. That is where she would start.
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Luthor’s cigar was less than half its original size. He glared at the screen, his contentment gone.
When Hodge and Lane *had* talked, it had been gibberish. Irrelevant, unusable gibberish about something past. Then they’d been silent. For endless minutes.
He shook his head in disgust. How *could* any self-respecting reporter stare silently into space when she had Franklin Hodge as her captive audience? Did she not realise the gravity of her situation?
A distinct feeling of unease swamped Luthor. It was as new as it was unpleasant. His usually unshakeable self-confidence was rattled around the edges.
He took a remote control from his desk drawer.
“Cheerio, Nigel,” he said, in his best English accent.
+-+-+-+
“*Was* there a spaceship?” Lois said.
Hodge slowly opened his eyes and looked up. “Possibly.”
She lurched upright and her head protested painfully. “Was there a baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“What *do* you know?” she fired at him.
“After I met them that night, I reported what they’d told me. Three hours later, I had orders to take them in.”
“So they had *something*?”
“Their home or wherever would have been searched and, if necessary, cleared that night,” he said tiredly. “Maybe even before that night.”
“What did they find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they have the predictive picture?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they have a hair sample?”
“I don’t know.”
Her arsenal of questions collapsed in frustration. “Or you don’t want to tell me,” she accused.
He considered her, unmoved. “Are you familiar with the concept of ‘need to know’, Lois?”
“It’s not that popular with reporters,” she said derisively.
He didn’t grin exactly, but she could tell he appreciated her comment. “Lois ... what I do ... each individual knows a very small piece of the puzzle. Those who know more don’t work on the ground. Sometimes I’ll be told to do something and I never know why. Sometimes I find out when I read your story in the Daily Planet.”
“Really?”
Hodge seemed to be considering his next words. “Obviously you know they ... the details on documents ... aren’t true?”
“Yeah.”
“I wondered if he *was*... you know, what was said ... and he’d threatened you ... and you were trying to tell me you needed help ...”
“Why would I go to you?” she asked incredulously. “You’d just tried to kill me twice.”
“Divert you. I didn’t want to kill you, I just did -.”
“What needed to be done,” Lois said, in a tired mantra. She looked directly at Hodge, the embryo of her plan beginning to develop. “He’s not an ... you know, what was said about him,” she said emphatically.
“I figured that.”
“How?”
“Let’s assume he was. I’m the last person you would tell. I mean, just when the government are following up that particular story ... you ask for false birth details for a ... local.”
That insight caused a sunrise of dismay to begin its slow ascent inside her, but she pushed it aside. Now was not the time. “So because of me, they would have checked on him?”
“Undoubtedly. But I assume he has an explanation, something he didn’t want made public, maybe to protect someone else, his mother perhaps – so the false ID gave him a simple way to squash the rumour.”
A sudden spark of inspiration illuminated the pathways in her mind, connecting the numerous half-formed ideas into a cohesive plan. “Assuming communication happens across international borders, there won’t be any problems,” she said airily.
Hodge’s eyes narrowed. With an almost indiscernible tweak of his eyebrow, he reminded her to be careful with what she said. “No problems?”
“Clark Kent arrives in Metropolis and lands a job at the Daily Planet, a position he gets because of his extensive experience as a reporter for the venerated Smallville Press.”
“Lois,” Hodge said evenly.
“Don’t tell me you were fooled by that country boy innocence,” she mocked.
“Of course not,” he said with no determinable expression at all. The gleam in his eyes made her wonder if he was with her.
She contemplated him for a long moment, a small smile playing on her mouth. “Maybe you really do only know your little bit.” She chuckled. “But the timing made it obvious.”
“Timing?” he said.
“With just a little basic research,” she said haughtily, “You will discover that Clark Kent, supposed backwater no-name, has periodically appeared in various exotic, nonsensical locations. Between carefully inconsequential sojourns in Sm -.”
“Lois!” he said, low and insistent.
By now she was convinced that Hodge knew she had purpose and was acting his part of the cluey agent trying to quieten the blabber-mouth reporter. “Who recently arrived from ... across the ocean?” she asked loftily.
“How do you know this?”
“I’m an investigative reporter,” she said with pride. “Kent should have realised that. He’s only got himself to blame if this blows up in his face.”
“What?”
She sighed with feigned frustration. “The tunnel … plus this building … plus the recently arrived foreigner … refined foreigner … who works in this building … plus the Daily Planet’s sudden inexplicable need for a new reporter … a greenhorn from Smallville.” Lois leant towards Hodge. “Are you on the same page yet?” she demanded, emphasising each individual word.
“Kent is …”
“You didn’t know,” she exclaimed with an equal mix of triumph and surprise.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“He’ll know. With you here and me here, he’ll realise.”
“Not likely. Ni- … he has been doing this for years. He’s very cocksure of his ability to fool everyone. Including Lex Luthor.”
Hodge didn’t respond and Lois leant her head against the concrete wall, her job done. Whether it would make any difference, she didn’t know.
She stole a glance at Hodge. He was looking at her.
He winked. It was scarcely more than a fleeting spasm of his eyelid.
But she understood – he *was* on the same page.
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As Luthor had been about to press the button on the remote control and activate the systematic replacement of the true records with the doctored ones, Lois had broken the silence in the dungeon.
Luthor paused, finger poised. As he listened to their conversation, a small frown of surprise creased his forehead.
When his prisoners went silent again, Luthor put down the remote control and typed ‘Clark Kent’ into his internet search engine. He discovered the Daily Planet’s newest reporter had filed stories from a wide range of seemingly unlinked places – New Guinea, Tibet, Nepal, Australia, Borneo – all within the past two years.
Luthor poured himself another glass of wine, deep in thought. He didn’t like being anyone’s fool. Certainly not Nigel St John’s. But it was a small price to pay for having things fall, yet again, his way.
Eventually a slow, putrid smile slithered across his face.
All that was required was to leave well enough alone. He would be rid of St John while avoiding the time-consuming tedium of recovering his files and resetting his programs.
But he needed to be sure Lane wasn’t bluffing.
He turned down the volume on the screen and paged his assistant.
The Englishman was there within half a minute. “Yes, Sir,” he said in his usual irritatingly viscid manner.
Luthor took fresh interest in the face looking down at him. Yes, he could see a certain smugness, a certain camouflaged superiority. “Lane isn’t getting anything out of the prisoner,” he said. “You know what to do.”
“Yes, Sir.” Luthor didn’t miss the gleam of anticipation in St John’s eyes.
Luthor spoke as St John reached the door. “Nigel?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“After the prisoner is out of the cell, go to Lane and inform her Clark Kent was shot and killed earlier this evening as he poked around the warehouse.”
“Yes, Sir.” Not the smallest semblance of emotion touched St John’s face. He turned and left the room.
Luthor sipped his wine. Either St John didn’t know Kent was after him.
Or he had English stoicism down to a fine art.
He was willing to bet Lois Lane wouldn’t be able to mask her emotions so well.
+-+-+-+
Lois startled as the door unlocked. The thug walked in, undid Hodge’s cuffs, hauled him to his feet and roughly dragged him out of the room. Lois heard the door lock again.
She rested her head against the hard, cold wall. Her head throbbed agonizingly. Her arms ached, her legs were cold and numb, the steel of the cuffs jutted painfully into the soft flesh around her wrists. She was hungry and it felt like the mustiness from each breath had grown like mould inside the walls of her stomach.
Clark.
Her thoughts drifted to her weekend in Smallville with Clark. They were the best of memories. She remembered telling him she wanted all three of his sugars – and him giving them to her without hesitation. She remembered him hooking the worm for her – and then driving her to Smallville after she’d gone in the wrong direction. She remembered how he’d stood between her and Hodge when Hodge was threatening her – and how, when she’d asked him about it later, he’d been uncomfortable with even the slightest suggestion he was a hero.
She remembered how, throughout the entire time she was with him, his first thought had always been her - her comfort, her safety, her well-being.
And, in that respect, nothing had changed when he’d moved to Metropolis.
She remembered the moment she had met him. How he’d barged into her room, wearing only a towel and his glasses.
That chest. She would *never* forget that chest.
She groaned. She had finally found someone ... someone she could trust. Someone who was kind and decent and honest. Someone whose personal code of courtesy meant he would never pressure her into anything before she was ready.
She *had* kissed him. Once. In his car, when she had needed a ruse so the Sewells wouldn’t suspect she was following them. It wasn’t really a kiss, more an occupational fringe benefit. But it had been enough that, ever since, she’d hoped there would be a repeat.
But there hadn’t been and now she wasn’t sure there ever would be.
They’d had a total of seven days together. Seven meagre days. And on their last day together, she had barely acknowledged his presence.
She groaned and rested her head in the arch of her arms.
The door unlocked and Nigel St John walked in. “Ms Lane,” he said.
She looked up at him, keeping her face blank.
“Clark Kent was shot dead earlier this evening,” he said soullessly. “That’s what happens to reporters who pry into other people’s business.”
An icy shaft plunged through Lois’s heart. She stared transfixed at St John’s slightly stooped back as he left.
The lock of the door resonated in her ears.
Clark.
Lois couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t utter a sound.
Her heart thumped painfully. Tiny, darting icicles of pain scythed across the taut skin of her fingers, her hands and up her arms.
Her dry eyes began to burn and she forced herself to blink. She slumped back against the cold wall.
She needed air. With a breath that lifted her shoulders, she inhaled.
The image of Clark - lifeless, bleeding, dead – rammed into her imagination and an involuntary moan escaped from her quivering lips.
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Lex Luthor smiled at the monitor with immense satisfaction.
Lane’s traumatised response had been as genuine as he had ever witnessed. It was far too raw, too innate, too instinctive, to be a reaction to the passing of a meaningless colleague.
Lois Lane was a smart woman.
Kent dead meant St John had discovered Kent was on his trail and dealt with the danger.
Kent dead meant she had no hope of rescue, no hope of life beyond the next few hours.
Kent dead meant she was entirely alone and at the mercy of a heartless murderer.
Luthor sipped his wine, watching with morbid fascination as Lois Lane faced the certainty of her impending demise.
Sure now that St John was the hunted, Luthor picked up the remote control and put it back in the drawer. He glanced at his watch and switched the monitor from the cell camera to the warehouse camera.
Delivery was imminent.
St John walked in, face impassive and hands clasped behind his back. Together the two men surveyed the monitor.
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Clark, now dressed in his blue suit with the red cape fluttering in the breeze, heard the approaching truck. He hovered in the darkness as it backed into the warehouse.
He flew to the top floor of the LexCorp building, landed on the balcony and strode into the room.
Luthor and St John looked up from the monitor.
Clark darted to the men, picked up both of them and deposited them in the centre of the large room.
“Mr Luthor,” he said. “Mr St John.”
The initial shock on Luthor’s face was replaced by an arrogant smirk. “So they’ve resorted to fancy dress,” he said. “When all else has failed ...” His eyes flickered to St John.
St John moved quickly.
Clark was quicker.
He pushed St John back against Luthor. In less than a flash, he disconnected a computer cable and tied the two men together, arms pinned to their sides. He stood back, his arms crossed and his shoulders back. “If you move so much as a muscle, I’ll apply heat,” he warned.
Luthor’s hand inched towards the inside of his jacket. Clark aimed and fired a spurt of heat. Luthor’s hand shot back.
St John twitched. Clark repeated the dose, this time aimed at St John’s hand. The Englishman lurched, nearly causing both himself and Luthor to lose balance.
Luthor began angrily pounding behind him at St John, verbal abuse and curses flowing freely. In the midst of the chaos, his hand again approached his pocket. Clark fired two heat darts.
Luthor regarded Clark with rabid abhorrence. “To think I finally get taken down by a mutant,” he sneered. His hand edged towards his pocket again.
“This is for Janet Thorp,” Clark said.
He took a deep breath and blew at Luthor’s right hand. It went white and Luthor stared at it, aghast. He began trying to clench it, to work away the numbness.
“That’s about fifty degrees,” Clark said calmly. “I can drop it to below freezing - which will probably do irreparable damage.”
Fearful, stark realisation flooded Luthor’s eyes.
The door crashed open, but Clark’s attention did not waver from the two men tied back to back. A deluge of armed police flowed through the door. They surrounded Luthor and St John, weapons poised. Last in was Henderson.
With his left hand, Luthor dived for his pants’ pocket. Clark blew and Luthor’s hand stopped half way, frozen, almost literally.
With a blur which couldn’t be tracked, Clark relieved both men of everything except their clothes. He handed the contents of their pockets to Henderson.
“Thanks,” said Henderson.
“Are you right to take it from here?” Clark asked.
Henderson grinned. “Yep. The computer guys will be here in less than two minutes. Luthor’s secrets will be secret no longer.”
Clark walked to the balcony and flew away.
He had delicate peace talks to negotiate.
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The sound of the door being unlocked jarred Lois from her cloud of torment. She watched as Franklin Hodge was shoved into the room by the thug. Hodge was bleeding profusely from his swollen, distorted face. His left hand was cradling his right wrist.
The thug snatched away Hodge’s left hand and his right hand hung at a sickening angle. Lois swallowed against the rising tide of nausea. The thug cuffed Hodge’s uninjured wrist and left the room.
Hodge tentatively shuffled into a position where his knee provided some support for his wrist. He laid his head against the wall and was still.
“Franklin?” Lois said, horrified. “Why did they do this to you?”
“The usual,” he said, flatly. “They wanted information.”
She couldn’t voice her pre-existing anguish. While it remained unspoken, she could keep it imprisoned in the depths of her mind. “Why didn’t you give it to them? I mean, it’s probably against secret agent rules or whatever, but it would have been better than this. Anything would be better than this.” She was babbling.
He opened one eye. The other was swollen closed. His face was pallid and his mouth was crinkled in pain. “I don’t *know* anything,” he insisted. “I was sent in undercover as an employee and told to find out what I could about the layout of this building.”
“So they caught you snooping in the tunnels too?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get past Luthor’s office. I don’t know how, but they knew who I was. My cover lasted less than three minutes.”
“If I’d printed those photos from Smallville,” Lois said thoughtfully, “This would be my fault.”
“If you’d printed those photos,” he said darkly, “I wouldn’t be here.”
She looked at him, aware of a disconcerting need to apologise, although she couldn’t have said exactly what she needed to apologise for.
Except being indifferent to how doing her job might affect other people.
But that was what made her such a good reporter – her fearlessness, her determination, her dedication to get the story and print it, no matter what.
But it was a fair bet Clark Kent thought about the implications of what he wrote.
Had thought, she corrected herself. Had thought.
