Chapter
7 Suzi Takes
Charge
Suzi Kendall, also
known as the Scarlet Falcon furrowed her very attractive
brow. Something was definitely
wrong. There had been no contact
from any of her superheroine friends and as a result she had contacted the
police as planned. She had been
informed, however, that the police had already been sent to the address in
question. That was very
strange. It meant that something
had gone seriously wrong. It
was time for her to take action.
She was already in her bright red Scarlet Falcon
outfit. She headed downstairs
to the garage. Waiting for her
was the modified crimson roadster that served as her mode of
transport. It was sleek, fast,
powerful, and equipped with a number of crimefighting gadgets that gave her
the edge over most criminals. This
time, however, she had her doubts.
One of her heroine companions should have called in by
now. The fact that no one had
meant that they had come up against formidable
opposition. She would have to
be damned careful or she would end up caught as
well.
She pushed the button that activated the automatic garage door and gunned
the motor of her powerful vehicle.
She knew that racing through the streets at high speed might attract
a lot of attention, but this was no time to worry about traffic
rules. Besides, nothing the police
had could catch her.
It took her less than fifteen minutes to reach the Black Leopard’s
hideout. There were three police
cars in front of the building, but no
police. That was strange and
ominous. What had happened to
the cops?
She had a plan worked out. Since
she had heard from none of her friends it seemed logical to expect the
worst. The worst was that they
had all been captured. It was
unlikely that they had been killed.
Supervillains did not work like
that. They always liked to rape
and torture their victims first.
Only underlings got killed, not
superheroines. She had every
expectation that they had been taken captive and were waiting for
rescue. However, she did not
want to join them as a prisoner and so she would proceed
carefully.
Suzi got out of the car. It was
now mid-afternoon, but the Black Leopard had chosen her lair
well. It was an area of town
that did not get a lot of traffic and the street was
deserted. Suzi walked down the
side of the building. Going through
the front door was a bit too obvious.
So was going through the back
door. But the side of the building
offered possibilities. It was
a fairly large building with many windows on all
floors. Securing all of them
would have been enormously expensive, so she had a right to assume that she
might be able to break in undetected through one of the side windows on the
upper floors.
Suzi stopped halfway to the back of the building and reached into her utility
belt. She did not have the Jade
Dragon’s athletic ability, but she was immensely
inventive. She took out a tiny
gun and stepped back a few feet to improve her
angle. Aiming just above one
of the third floor windows she pulled the trigger and launched a small high-speed
steel dart at the brickwork. The
dart struck home, its high tensile steel penetrating the brick and carrying
with it a long thin steel cable.
Suzi secured the loose end of the cable to her belt and pushed a
button. There was a low whirring
sound as the cable was reeled in by a small, but powerful mini-winch attached
to her belt. As the cable tightened
she grasped it in her gloved hands and began to climb the side of the
building. She soon reached the
level of the third floor window and stopped the
mini-winch. Bracing her feet
on either side of the window she took out a glasscutter and removed a circular
section of the pane. Then she
reached inside and flicked open the window
catch. A few seconds later she
was inside the room.
“So far so good,” she thought, but now she was in much greater
danger. The Black Leopard was
unlikely to leave the entire building open to
intrusion. The farther she got
into her lair the more likely it was that she would run into some sort of
trap. She reached into her utility
belt and took out a small electronic
device. It was a small square
mechanism in a rectangular metal case, just large enough to fit into the
palm of her hand. It had a red
and green button on it and a gauge that looked somewhat like a meter for
measuring the flow of electrical current.
In fact it was a sensitive detection
device.
Suzi pushed the green button and held the device in front of
her. The detector gave a small
“beep” and then remained
silent. Slowly Suzi walked across
the room. The machine made no
further noises. “So far,
so good,” she thought.
Cautiously, she opened the door and stepped into the
corridor. There seemed to be
no one about and she tentatively moved toward a door at the far
end. She had gone only about
twenty steps when the detector gave a loud beep and the red light
flashed. There was danger just
ahead. Her device had detected
electronic relays that were tuned to spring some sort of
trap. Suzi scanned the wall with
the detector. About four feet
off the floor the machine gave another
beep. Feeling carefully, she
moved her fingers over the wall.
She sensed a slight imperfection and gave it a little
push. A small hatch popped open,
revealing a small switch. Suzi
flicked the switch down. Her
detector beeped again, but this time the green light
flashed. The trap had been
disabled. In this manner Suzi
moved from room to room, exploring the entire
floor. She could not afford to
hurry, so it took her quite some time.
Most of the rooms seemed to be taken up with lavishly furnished living
quarters. It appeared that there
were at least four women living in the building, as all of the rooms contained
clear signs of female occupants, but there was no one at
home. Eventually she searched
the final room. Now she had to
make a decision. Did she go upstairs
or down?
She decided to head up. There
were three ways of reaching the fourth floor: the elevator, the stairs, or
go back outside the building. Suzi
chose the latter. It was the
slowest and least convenient method of moving up one floor, but probably
the safest. She found a window,
opened it and used her climbing gear to move to the room
above. She reached it safely
and continued her methodical search.
On this floor, however, she made a startling
discovery.
She entered a large room at the end of the main
corridor. Lying on the floor
was the body of a naked man. Suzi
could see by the pile of clothes and the police firearm lying beside the
body that the man had been a member of the
“Whomever did this seemed to know what they were doing,” thought
Suzi. Both dead cops seemed to
have been killed most scientifically.
The really strange thing, however, was the absence of anyone else
on the floor. It was completely
deserted, even though it was obvious that several people had been there quite
recently. Suddenly she noticed
something that would help her. The
cop in the outer room had bled profusely from his shattered
face. Someone had stepped in
the blood and had left a trail leading from the
room. It seemed like a possible
lead. The bloody footprints led
to a blank wall. Suzi held up
her detector. The green light
flashed. There was no trap, but
the meter indicated a hidden doorway.
Suzi searched for a few seconds, located the concealed switch, and
opened the doorway. There was
a flight of stairs leading down inside a secret
passage. It was illuminated by
several low wattage light bulbs.
“Alright,” she thought, “this is more like
it.” Her quarry could not
be far ahead. Still cautious,
bur more confident now, Suzi followed the trail of bloody footprints into
the stairwell.
The steps went down and down and down.
Suzi guessed that they descended far below the street level of the
building. She went as fast as
she dared. It would do no good
to catch up with her quarry if she was caught as
well.
The stairs ended in a door. Suzi
checked the doorknob. It
turned. Slowly she pushed the
door open. The door opened into
a dark room. She stepped into
it. She took only two steps before
an arm grabbed her from behind. A
hand was clamped over her mouth.
She took a deep breath. A
sweetish odor assailed her nostrils.
“Chloroform!” She
swayed as the anesthetizing liquid dulled her
senses. She had fallen into a
trap after all!
PREVIOUS
CHAPTER
WIZARD'S LAIR
MAIN PAGE
L'ESPION'S
STORY PAGE
NEXT
CHAPTER