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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 7:57:05 GMT
Chapter 1
Golden sunlight poured through the open window of a room as a sleeper began to slowly awake from a dream. The comforting smells of pancakes being cooked downstairs helped soothe him from the uneasy sensation of falling, which had woken him up.
In his dream he had been using his costume's built-in electromagnetically charged roller-skates to skate easily, almost effortlessly along power lines in the big city of Brooklyn. As usual, he had been chasing a criminal along the rooftops and had leaped onto the power lines to continue his pursuit from above. All the while, he used his customized transistor radio transmitter to transmit his voice urging the man to give up through a frequency to a piece of metal in the vicinity of his prey; in this case, it was the man's wristwatch.
There was nothing about the pursuit in itself that felt dangerous, and he felt no fear whatsoever. The Jordans were known for being a fearless bunch, after all. But in dreams things were different. He suddenly began to swoon, losing his bearings. He would surely fall, and there was nothing he could do to prevent himself from hitting the ground, hard.
It began with his left leg up in the air, while his right continued to skate along the power line at a fast pace, bumping every few seconds as he went over a pole. He felt his arms reach out in an awkward attempt to right his balance, but it was too late. The pigeon was the last straw. Unlike most birds who would flee, it remained there, oblivious to his swift approach. The man wanted to cry out to warn the bird and shoo it away, but the bird remained completely still.
When he finally made contact with the bird, it was the pigeon that remained, while he tripped his right foot against it and went toppling down, past the point of no return. He was too far past the power line, and nowhere near a pole. He was going down.
And that was when physical panic set in, overcoming his fearless nature to awake him from the dream.
Larry Jordan slowly arose, placing his legs over the side of the bed as he rubbed his eyes. Reaching for his glasses, he replaced them on his face and casually wondered what his enemies and fans alike would think if they knew that their hero, the great Brooklyn-based mystery man known as Air Wave, wore prescription lenses both in and out of costume. Ah, but costumed types like him were slowly starting to be labeled as super-heroes. The name of that kid in Smallville, whose reputation had slowly grown since his debut three years ago, had begun to influence the way costumed mystery men were perceived.
Yes, the era of non-powered but resourceful heroes like himself, the Guardian, Manhunter, and the Vigilante was slowly fading away, to be overshadowed by such super-powered heroes like Plastic Man, Robotman, TNT and Dyna-Mite, and Superboy, who last he heard could tow entire planets with his pinky finger. The world was changing, and Larry wondered if he would be able to keep up.
Most of his enemies were the usual small-time criminals with big ambitions as well as the usual hardened mob bosses who usually kept themselves hidden out of sight unless their business was threatened. There was also the occasional Soviet spy or saboteur. But besides Machine Man last year (who was little more than a low-rent Robotman), Air Wave had never encountered a so-called super-villain, one of those super-powered types who used his abilities for personal gain and was essentially the crooked counterpart of the costumed hero. Super-villains -- the real ones with actual powers, not merely those who liked to dress up in costume -- were few and far between for now, but Larry could foresee a day when they might even outnumber the heroes.
He had only been a mere boy when Microwave Man, the first actual super-villain appeared, and no one was able to do anything to him. His powers made him virtually untouchable back in 1938. Of course, the only costumed heroes that existed back then were in the funny books. Ultra-Man, Night Wizard, Madame Miracle, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Keen Arrow were spectacular heroes dressed in colorful costumes, but they were mere four-color fiction. No one could perform impossible feats like they did except Microwave Man, and everyone figured he just used some kind of scientific gimmick that no one had thought of before. There were, of course, rumors that the Shadow from that old radio show was actually real, but as far as anyone knew, those were just rumors. The Sentinels of Magic came along a few years later during the war, but although there were rumors that a few of these men possessed actual magic as opposed to figurative scientific magic, everyone knew them to be soldiers with scientific gimmicks that looked like magic.
Then came Captain Comet. He changed the game for everyone, at least for a time. When he arrived in 1951, he arrived in fully evolved form as the man of the future. He had no real precedent before him. Here was a man who had highly developed mental powers that he used to battle not only crime but numerous threats that had been unknown to the world outside of the funny books and sci-fi rags. Suddenly, Captain Comet thrust the paranoid Cold War world of the 1950s into the age of extraterrestrials. Left and right, there seemed to be some new threat from the stars. People even began spotting UFOs all over starting back then, and though many of those sightings could be explained away as hysteria, many were real.
When Captain Comet left Earth a mere three years after he began his crusade to investigate the source of all these extraterrestrial threats, the people of America -- no, the people of Earth -- felt almost abandoned by the only real protection against the threat from the stars. Still, the next five years were mostly quiet. Whatever Captain Comet had done, the Earth was no longer being invaded every five minutes by creatures out of H.G. Wells or Amazing Stories. Still, everyone felt uneasy.
Then came Superboy. Here was this young boy in a blue and red circus costume operating in a remote village a few miles outside Metropolis who suddenly showed up and began fighting crooks and busting up milk money schemes. No one knew what to make of him. He was obviously powerful, possibly as powerful as Captain Comet, but he lived in the middle of nowhere. Smallville was about as obscure as little Eastern Seaboard towns came, but the boy of steel still managed to put it on the map thanks to his exploits.
The first appearance of Superboy, unheralded by the media, nevertheless seemed to open the gates for imitators who probably felt more at ease imitating a super-powered kid by putting on a costume than attempting to emulate the evolved man of the future a few years earlier. A year after Superboy appeared, the wonderfully strange Plastic Man made his debut, followed not long after by the delightfully nostalgic Vigilante with his Old West-themed outfit from yesteryear. Among all of this new breed of costumed heroes, the Vigilante was probably the most accepted. Instead of wearing tights like many of his brethren, the Vigilante wore a cowboy hat and boots and carried six-shooters at his side. Take away his customized motorcycle and bandana, and he would fit in anywhere in Texas or a Hollywood studio lot. Yes, the Vigilante held a place in 1950s America's heart that no other costumed hero, even the kid from Smallville at the time, could even touch.
Then Larry Jordan stepped into the ring later that year as Air Wave. He supposed that his debut opened a floodgate, since only two months later in February, 1960, no less than five new mystery men debuted in the same month: the Guardian in Metropolis, and the Manhunter, Robotman, and TNT and Dyna-Mite in New York City, one of the strangest assortment of costumed heroes yet. People began to wonder if this trend would continue to grow, but in fact no new heroes had sprung up since then.
He wasn't even sure when it began, exactly, but somehow Larry had known for a long time that he would become one of the costumed crime-fighters that had populated the pulp fiction novelettes and comic-books of his youth. And he already had a gimmick. In fact, he had been working on it for nearly all his life.
Larry grew up listening to the old shows of the golden age of radio. The Shadow, the Green Hornet, and the Lone Ranger were inspirations to him long before Captain Comet or Superboy came on the scene. As the youngest of five brothers whose ages spanned twenty years, Larry always felt like an outsider in the Jordan clan. While Marty was always the hero, Joe the oddball, and Jeremiah and Titus the old boys who were on their way to make it big in the world, Larry was the quiet, bespectacled, reserved youngest brother who basically kept out of everyone's way. It was hard being a Jordan in Coastville, California, especially when his oldest brothers Jeremiah and Titus had already accomplished so much in their lives by the time Larry was even born.
While Martin Jordan went off to war in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Larry was preparing for entrance to the law school at Harvard University. He worked harder than he ever had before in his life to get in, and once he was accepted, he left Coastville and never looked back. The next few years kept him busy studying law with more passion and fervor than any of his classmates. Larry had been given a great deal of respect thanks to his being related to the great Jeremiah Jordan, a rising legal eagle who had attended Harvard twenty years before him and who was on his way to a judge's seat. But Larry never took advantage of his family name, preferring to make his own quiet way in the world.
Yet, even while he was busy feverishly studying for the moment when he would pass the bar exam and become an attorney, Larry never forgot the dreams of his youth, nor his passion for radio. It was almost as if he had a secret life. His shyness had always prevented him from having much of a social life, and none of the young women he dated ever stayed long enough to get to know the real man beneath his awkward exterior, but as a master of radio he felt like he was really in control. He knew several other amateur radio enthusiasts since his youth, and despite his busy schedule first as a law student and then as a legal clerk, he always kept up with ham radio. But he also managed to surpass many of his fellow enthusiasts thanks to his keen, scientific mind. He was able to perform what almost amounted to feats of magic with his radio, such as transmitting a frequency to a piece of metal -- any piece of metal -- within the vicinity.
With the advent of the transistor radio in the mid-1950s, Larry was able to perfect his methods even further, adding to his repertoire a Tesla-inspired device that was able to draw electricity from the very air around him. He was a genius, a master of the radio and electromagnetism, but his genius was also completely unknown. He preferred it that way. By day, he was Larry Jordan, attorney at law, while by night he was Air Wave, the master of radio. Of course, he told no one of his adopted alter ego, somehow sensing that he would need it to be kept a secret until a certain day.
So by the time costumed heroes like Superboy, Plastic Man, and the Vigilante arrived, Larry Jordan already had a full-fledged costumed hero persona that was only in want of an actual costume. After Plastic Man first made the news in June, 1959, Larry realized that the time might be right for the debut of Air Wave. He had already designed a costume of green and red, with a yellow cape, but it took him a few months to construct it. By that time, he was working as an assistant to the district attorney in Kings County, New York. Brooklyn was bustling with organized crime at the time, and Larry's fate was decided one December night that year when Desmond Cole, his boss the D.A., was kidnapped by gunmen working for notorious mob boss Snake Scalotti. Air Wave was needed for real.
Something about the mask and costume changed Larry's personality somewhat when he was dressed as Air Wave. It was like the persona of Air Wave allowed Larry to finally become more of a Jordan than he ever had been before. He was finally a hero like Marty and a leader like Jeremiah, without having to continuously live under their formidable shadows. As Air Wave, Larry was confident in his abilities and performed death-defying feats like the acrobats in Joe Jordan's circus show, something he had never dreamed of doing, even after spending one summer on tour with the Jordan Circus when he was still in school. Then he had merely been the younger brother of the circus owner and ringleader who would sneak up onto the high wires when everyone else was asleep.
One night he had been caught red-handed by a rising young acrobat named John Grayson, who with his wife Mary was already getting offers from some of the larger outfits, such the Haley Circus and the Hill Brothers Circus, thanks to their amazing acrobatic feats. But instead of turning Larry in to his older brother Joe, Johnny Grayson took Larry under his wing and taught him a few tricks. Thanks in part to his fearless Jordan blood, Larry was able to really get out of his shell and perform death-defying feats of his own for an audience of one. Johnny even thought Larry had what it took to go professional, but Larry would have none of it. The only Larry Jordan he wanted the world to know of was the meek and mild young attorney who was quietly on the rise in the legal world. And so they continued all that summer in secret. Not even Mary, Johnny's wife, knew about Larry's secret life as a trapeze artist.
As Air Wave, Larry was finally able to put all the pieces of his life together as a crime-fighter. His mastery of electromagnetism was combined with his amazing athleticism to allow him to jump from power lines that served as urban high wires. And his keen legal mind allowed him to become a detective like the Shadow on the airwaves of his youth. Air Wave followed up his swift triumph over the Scalotti mob with victories over numerous petty criminals and Soviet spies over the last year and a half.
And as Larry Jordan, his life took a swift turn when District Attorney Cole was murdered by a lowly legal clerk who worked in his office named Grumble. At first Larry was accused of the crime thanks to Grumble's frame job, but as Air Wave he was able to settle the matter and exact a confession out of the man. But he was unprepared for the moment when the mayor himself entered his jail cell and not only told him that he was free and clear of the murder of his boss, but that he was now the new D.A. Larry accepted with some reservations, of course; Cole had a great reputation as the D.A., and he also loved the spotlight that came with the job. While Larry was sure of his ability to do the job, he wasn't so sure about taking on such a public and involved role, especially since it would inevitably put a damper on his nightly activities as the costumed Air Wave.
Still, he agreed to take on the job until the next election, and to everyone's surprise he did as good a job as Cole ever had as the Kings County D.A. That November, he won his office fair and square by a slim majority. And he also managed to find time to continue being Air Wave. Of course, this was not without a sacrifice. He still had no social life to speak of, something that made him greatly different from the freewheeling Desmond Cole. So while Cole often spent his nights at night clubs and private parties hobnobbing with New York City's elite, punctuating his career with big, grandstanding victories over various mob figures, Larry slowly and meticulously worked as he always had under Cole, following the trail of blood money back to its sources and donning his green, yellow, and red costume as Air Wave whenever the D.A.'s office or the police had their hands tied by legal red tape. It was a perfect balance, or so he thought at first.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 7:58:06 GMT
Chapter 2
Now, after a year of being both district attorney and mystery man, Larry was tired. That was why he had taken two weeks off and had gone on vacation to a place far removed from the urban sprawl that was the New York metropolitan area. He had arrived the night before last at Rip Ranson's Cowboy Ranch exhausted and drained, ready to forget about fighting crime and protecting honest citizens both in and out of costume. But predictably, crime had not forgotten about him.
Yesterday morning, as he awoke at the crack of dawn and attempted and failed to ride a bucking bronco that no one had been able to tame, a grizzled, middle-aged prospector named Zeke Mullins came riding up and told Rip Ranson and Larry that he was on the verge of striking it rich in gold. Rip and Larry thought he was crazy and dismissed his story after the man rode off excitedly, but soon they had cause to rethink their assessment. Later that day, the county sheriff rode by and told them that a gang of criminals led by Spur Sanders had kidnapped old Zeke. Since reinforcements were on the way but would be awhile, Rip Ranson took off with him to save Zeke from the gang. Larry feebly rode after them but allowed his horse to quickly fall behind. Despite his best intentions, Air Wave was needed once more. Quickly donning his costume, which he had brought with him just in case, Larry as Air Wave traveled along some old telegraph lines and managed to stumble across Spur Sanders and his gang himself, who were invisible from the road below.
Without a moment's thought, Air Wave dived into the fray, striking Spur Sanders and battling the outlaws in an attempt to free old Zeke Mullins. But thanks to his Jordan family fearlessness, he neglected to exercise proper caution for his own safety, and one of the fallen gang members managed to trip him up with a spur, allowing Sanders himself to slug him over the head with the butt of his gun.
Air Wave awoke a short time later, thankful that the criminals hadn't been at all interested in unmasking him, only to find his feet tied up and forced to stand out into the open above the road in order to lure the approaching sheriff and Rip into a trap. Unable to escape without being shot dead, Air Wave stood there as instructed but clandestinely whispered into the button-like microphone strapped below his chin, hoping that some piece of metal on the two men would pick up his radio transmissions.
Amazingly enough it worked, and the metal buttons along the muzzle worn by Rip Ranson's horse picked up Air Wave's voice. He was able not only to warn them of a trap but also suggest an alternate route to ambush the gang. Then, transmitting his voice into Spur Sanders' own metal six-shooter, Air Wave was able to create a momentary diversion to allow himself to escape by sliding down the edge of the steep hillside below the cliff where he had stood.
But he wasn't satisfied with escaping and letting the sheriff capture them. Instead, he did what the gang would never expect anyone to do. He scaled the cliff itself. Since Sanders and his men were focused on an ambush from any direction but the cliffside, they didn't notice when Air Wave used his magnetic soles to slowly follow a magnetic vein of iron ore all the way back up the steep cliff. He was able to get the drop on the gang and had them all tied up by the time Rip Ranson and the sheriff and his reinforcements finally made it there.
Then, to help old Zeke, Air Wave used his power over electromagnetic frequencies to locate the elusive vein of gold that Zeke had sought without success for a decade. It turned out that the gold was located in the very hill that Zeke had been kept as a prisoner by the gang. So, under Air Wave's directions, the men helped Zeke find his treasure at last, which was not a vein of gold after all but the buried loot of a Spanish Conquistador.
While Zeke and the others celebrated over their great fortune, Air Wave disappeared across the telegraph wires back to Rip's ranch before anyone could ask him any personal questions, such as why a New York-based mystery man had suddenly popped up at the same time as the Brooklyn D.A. decided to have his vacation out there. Larry knew that if he had not made such an effort to appear like an ineffectual tenderfoot from the big city, they might have put two and two together and guessed that Larry was, in fact, Air Wave himself. As it was, Larry was able to appear like such a nebbish that the thought of him performing any of the derring-do of Air Wave was laughable to anyone but himself. At most the others would surmise that Air Wave had followed Larry out to the Southwest in order to protect the city's district attorney. But Larry hoped neither the sheriff nor Rip would look into it too much. The life of a mystery man was complicated enough as it was.
That was yesterday. Today, Larry hoped to finally take it easy and enjoy life on the ranch for the remaining portion of his two-week vacation. And part of that was feasting on the pancake breakfast that awaited him downstairs.
Larry pushed his glasses up his nose and went to brush his hair. In a few moments, he was dressed in the oversized green suit and tie that -- along with his out-of-style, pencil-thin black mustache -- made him look much older and much scrawnier than he was. The day before, when he had gone out to ride horses dressed in the suit, he knew Rip and the ranch hands were laughing at him. That was no accident, of course, but part of the disguise of mild-mannered Larry Jordan that he always maintained while in public. It had actually been a relief yesterday when he was able to shed his city clothes and dress up as Air Wave again. As in the city, it was only as Air Wave that Larry was really able to be himself.
He soon joined Rip Ranson and a few other guests that had arrived the previous evening at a large dinner table.
"Larry, m'boy," began Rip, "ya know I've got a spare set o' clothes for you when you're on the ranch. If I was dressed in that zoot suit of your'n, I'd be crawlin' the walls by now."
"Oh, Rip, you hush," said the cook as she brought out several heaping plates full of fried eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns and began placing them in front of the guests. She was a big, proud woman who always had something to say. "If Mr. Jordan, here, wants to wear his nice tailored suit, I say let 'im."
"Emmaline, don't you have some dishes to wash?" snapped Rip crankily.
"Now don't start with me," Emmaline snapped back. "I don't care if you haven't had your mornin' coffee yet -- I ain't gonna stand for no back-talk when I'm serving you vittles. Apologize!"
Rip Ranson waved his hands in the air, his usually laid-back expression now creased with worry. "I'm sorry, Emma. I'm sorry! Y'know I get cranky without my mornin' coffee. This place would be run into the ground if it weren't for you. You know that!"
"Well, I expect you'll remember that from now on," said Emmaline proudly. She turned to Larry, her expression completely changed into a broad smile. "Now is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Jordan?"
Larry looked at her through his glasses and smiled back. "Thank you, Emmaline. This is a wonderful spread already. The only thing I might ask of you is--"
"Yes, Mr. Jordan?"
"Please call me Larry," he said. Noticing her hesitation, he added, "My friends all call me Larry."
Emmaline smiled again and said, "Well, Larry it is, then." And she went back to the kitchen, humming a song all the while.
"She sure likes you," said Rip, smiling once more.
"Yes, well, she is a wonderful cook," said Larry.
"Couldn't agree more," Rip said. "I wasn't lyin' about what I said, neither. This place would truly fall apart if it weren't for ol' Emmaline. I know some of our Southern clientele are sometimes put off by the way she gets her way around here, but y'know I don't cotton to folks enforcin' all that Jim Crow, segregationist stuff. Colored folks are just like any other in my books, you know that. I treat Emmaline like I'd treat my own sister, and along with that is the occasional argument and such."
"I know, Rip," said Larry. "She's family, right?"
"You got that right," said Rip, grinning as his eyes twinkled.
"And here's your coffee, Larry," said Emmaline, returning with a full pot. "And for you, Rip."
"Thank you so much, Emmaline," said Larry.
"Much appreciated, Emma," agreed Rip. Emmaline smiled at them and returned to the kitchen.
"So what's on the agenda for today?" asked Larry. "A little more horseback riding until the next gang of outlaws kidnaps a visiting prospector?"
Rip laughed and said, "Ah, no, no. That hardly ever happens around these parts, truly. I'm aimin' to take yuh a bit farther out today." Larry nodded. "But before yuh go out there," continued Rip, "you're really gonna have to get out of that tenderfoot outfit yuh got on, or you're liable to make us both the laughingstocks of the range."
"Well, uh..." began Larry, until he was interrupted by Emmaline once more.
"A phone call for you, Larry," she said in a sweet singsong voice.
"Oh?"
"It's your office," she explained. "The phone's right next to the kitchen whenever you're ready, sweetheart."
Larry muttered his thanks and excused himself from the table. Picking up the phone, he listened as his secretary told him some bad news.
"No..." was all that Larry said. His mind reeled at the news as his secretary gave him the rest of the information. Clearing his throat, he thanked her and said goodbye, then hung up the phone.
He stood there as if transfixed in place for a few moments longer, utterly stunned at the news. Emmaline, coming from the kitchen, said something to her that didn't register with him. When he didn't respond, she looked at him and immediately became alarmed at the expression on his face.
"Mister Larry? What's wrong? You look like someone just died."
Larry cleared his throat again and managed to mutter, "S-someone just did. It's m-my brother. My brother Martin."
"Oh, my dear sweet Lord," she said. "I'm so sorry, Mister Larry."
"It's -- it's OK, Emmaline," said Larry, pushing his glasses up a bit more. "I'm -- I'm going to have to leave to make arrangements. My b-brothers want me to come back to Coastville as soon as possible. They've been trying to reach me since yesterday morning."
"Mister Larry, is there anything I can do?" said Emmaline, creases of worry along her face.
"N-no," said Larry. "I'll be... I'll... I'll be f-f-fine..." At that, he collapsed to his knees and began sobbing.
The next few hours went by in a blur for Larry Jordan. Rip Ranson personally drove Larry into Albuquerque and brought him to the airport, where Larry somehow managed to keep from breaking down again as he bought a plane ticket and waited for the next flight to Coast City in California, where he would catch a train to nearby Coastville.
While his emotions had gotten the better of him at first, he now began to feel strangely numb. Martin Jordan, only four years older than him, was the closest in age to him and the only one who really felt like a brother. Jeremiah and Titus were both out of the house by the time Larry had been born, and Joe was always off somewhere until he, too, left home. Only Marty had been around to be Larry's big brother.
Martin Harold Jordan had always been so full of life. He was a daredevil who had walked away from so many scrapes and close-calls that people often said it was a wonder that he had managed to survive all these years at all. Marty was the first man from Coastville to join the war effort. In fact, he left for England and joined the Royal Air Force as a volunteer long before the United States was even in the war. Later, he transferred to the U.S. Army Air Force and flew a fighter plane in the Pacific. Even after Jack and Hal were born, Marty continued to go to war, fighting in Korea when his second-born was just learning how to walk. He just barely came back alive from that war, too, and he and Jessica had a third son, Jim, before they decided that three boys were enough. The Jordan family genes always did produce a lot of sons and hardly any daughters.
And now Marty was dead. That man who had been so full of life, who had cheated death on so many occasions as a fighter pilot in war, had died as a mere test pilot for Ferris Aircraft thanks to a fluke. It was all too much for Larry Jordan to understand, and he hoped against reason, against all logic, that somehow someone had made a mistake. Yes, he would go to Coast City and see for himself what had happened, make sure that everything that could be done for Marty had been done. He would make things right.
But he also knew it was too late. The best man among the Jordan brothers was dead, and it was up to him and the others to carry on as best they could.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 7:58:51 GMT
Chapter 3
Larry Jordan arrived in Coast City late that evening. By the time he got there, his feeling of hopefulness had all but dissipated. Of course they had done all they could to save his brother Martin. The people at Ferris Aircraft were professionals, weren't they? If there was even the slimmest chance that Marty could have survived the disaster, they would have known by the time his office called him from the ranch in New Mexico to tell him about it.
He was greeted at the airport by a man wearing the uniform and hat of a young limousine driver holding a sign with the name Larry Jordan written on it. Larry, clutching his own green hat in his hands uncomfortably, approached the man and said. "Uh, I'm Larry Jordan, but I'd been planning on taking the train into Coastville."
"Hello, sir," said the man formally. "My name is Williams, and I'll be your driver to the Jordan Mansion."
"Uh, which one?" asked Larry, knowing that both Titus Thomas "T.T." Jordan the wealthy financier and Judge Jeremiah Jordan both had residences in Coastville that could be considered mansions. The Jordans were as respected in Coastville as the Hand family.
The man turned on his heel and responded in an almost-offended voice, "Mr. Titus Jordan, sir."
"Of course," said Larry. He added under his breath, "Should have figured with such a personal touch."
"Pardon me, sir?"
"Never mind."
Larry sat silently as Williams drove him out of Coast City International Airport north toward Coastville. Already stars were peeking through the midnight blue sky above, but Larry did not notice the beauty in the evening California coastline due to his emotional preoccupation.
The limousine reached Coastville half an hour later, and soon enough it was pulling in to a lavish estate on the edge of town. Larry had not been back here in nearly six years, not since their father, a robust man, had died at the ripe old age of eighty. He winced as he realized that he had only been back to Coastville three times in the last ten years, and two of those times had been for funerals.
Williams led Larry Jordan between white columns on either side of huge oaken doors and entered the Jordan Mansion. He was greeted by a butler who ushered Larry in to a smoking room.
Larry walked into the room, announced by the butler, but Titus remained slumped in his seat by the empty fireplace, his back to the door. A thick pall of smoke hovered over the room as Titus smoked a cigar, one of several that evening. Larry silently made his way to the chair facing Titus' and looked at his brother, who was older than him by eighteen years. At fifty-three years old, T.T. Jordan was old enough to be Larry's father, and he looked it. Titus had always been the homeliest of the Jordan clan, with a pug nose, thick batwing eyebrows, and a receding hairline, but he had always held himself with confidence and a sureness about himself that was unmistakably a Jordan family trait. None of that was now evident. Titus was disheveled and wore a look of vague confusion on his face. The empty bottles of whisky indicated that he had been drinking quite a bit over the last two days. He looked less like the richest member of the Jordan clan and more like an old has-been who found an empty mansion after walking in off the street. The most surprising thing to Larry was how badly Titus smelled of liquor and uncleanliness. He had obviously not taken Martin's death well.
"Hello, Titus," said Larry after a moment.
Titus rolled his eyes with some effort up to see Larry. He looked disappointed. "Well, well, well... the prodigal son returneth."
Larry was unsure how to respond to that. He merely nodded.
"You're just in time to bury me next to Marty," Titus said, slurring his words. "I aim to drink myself to death, y'see, and no one can stop me."
"I didn't know you drank, T.T.," said Larry. "I thought that was more Joe's bag than yours."
"You don't know much, do ya?" Titus said, taking another swig of whiskey. "Dad blast it! The ice's melted again. Givens! Hey, Givens, you lousy excuse for a butler! My ice is melted!"
"I am sorry, sir," said Givens, Titus Jordan's long-suffering butler. "I will get you more ice immediately, sir."
"Can't get good help these days," grumbled Titus.
"You'd better be careful, T.T., or people are going to start thinking those initials stand for 'Terrible Temper' Jordan instead of Titus Thomas."
Titus glared at his younger brother for a moment, then looked away. "Well, you came. You finally came."
"I left as soon as I got word," said Larry.
"It shouldn't've been Marty who died, y'know," said Titus, almost shouting at him. "It shouldn't've been Marty. That's all I'm saying. Marty was the good one, the one with the good sons. Shouldn't've been him. That's all I'm... sayin'."
Larry knew that Titus had always regretted he had never had any children of his own. That was why, despite his Ebenezer Scrooge-like exterior, he tended to spoil young Jack, Hal, and Jim by regularly inviting them over to his mansion. Larry smiled suddenly as he thought of his nephews, Marty's sons. If their Uncle Titus was Scrooge McDuck, then Jack, Hal and Jim were a regular Huey, Dewey, and Louie, with about as much nose for adventure as three boys ever had. Larry grimaced as he wondered if that analogy made him Donald Duck; but the seriousness of the situation washed those idle thoughts from his mind, and he returned to the moment.
"How are the boys?" Larry asked.
"How d'you expect they are, Lawrence?" replied Titus, almost soberly. "They're crushed. They miss their father. Jack is taking it in stride, of course, but Hal is just angry -- so angry. Those two were present when Marty... when the accident happened, you know."
"What?" said Larry in shock. "No, you don't mean--"
"Yeah, those boys had to watch their own father go up in flames," said Titus. "O' course, little Jimmy is still a bit too young to understand, but you have to wonder. You have to wonder what effect this is gonna have on them when they get older."
"Oh, God," Larry muttered, trying to keep himself from breaking down again.
"Shouldn't've been Marty," said Titus again, sounding angry this time. He looked at Larry and growled, his voice slowly growing louder, "And where were you? Where were you when your own brother died? Why didn't you save him, Larry? He was your closest brother! Why did he have to die instead of you? Why couldn't it have been you? Why couldn't you have died instead?"
Larry, unable to contain himself any longer, quickly arose from his seat and walked to the door.
"Yeah, walk away, Mr. District Attorney!" shouted Titus, turning in his seat. "Run away, like you always do! But y'know what, Lawrence? Someday you're gonna die, too, sooner or later, and nobody's gonna give a damn!"
Larry exited the room and slammed the door, clasping and unclasping his hands in anger.
"I do apologize, sir," said the butler, Givens, in a whispering voice. "The master has been like this all day. It's only the alcohol talking."
Larry pressed one hand against his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment. Rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, he pushed them back up his nose a bit and said, "Givens, would you kindly ask Williams to bring the car around again? I've already had enough of Titus' famous mood swings, and I can't stay here any longer."
"Already done, sir," replied the butler cooly, who walked over to the front door and opened it for Larry. Sure enough, there was Williams with the limousine. "I've instructed the driver to deliver you to Master Jeremiah's, sir."
"Thank you," said Larry, leaving the Jordan Mansion.
A few minutes later, the limousine pulled up to a decidedly smaller and less-grand residence that was nevertheless a large mansion within an upscale neighborhood in Coastville. This was the home of Judge Jeremiah Jordan, Larry's oldest brother, who had recently turned fifty-five. He was one of the most respected judges in California. If Larry was sure of anything, it was that Jeremiah at least would be completely sober.
Larry was met at the door by his sister-in-law Edna, a much-younger woman in her late thirties.
"Hello, Larry," she said in greeting and immediately gave him a hug. "How are you holding up?"
"As well as can be expected, I guess," replied Larry.
"I'm so sorry about Marty," she said. "He was like a brother to me as well."
"Thank you."
"But please, come in, come in," she said, bringing him in off the doorstep and closing the door behind him. "I'll go get Jerry right away."
"Thanks again," said Larry. He had always felt uncomfortable around Edna. She was an outgoing type who, every time she and Jeremiah visited New York, was trying to bring Larry out of his shell a bit. She even once set Larry up on a blind date with a secretary named Agnes who would not stop talking during the entire date. Still, Larry thought, wincing, that had been the only date he'd been on in the past four years. Time was slipping by, and he wasn't getting any younger. If he wasn't careful, he would end up bitter and old like Titus.
"Jeremiah?" Edna called. "Jeremiah, your brother Larry is here."
Larry heard Jeremiah's voice reply that he would be a few minutes on the telephone, and he knew he would have to spend a few more uncomfortable moments alone with Edna. She didn't look too pleased with the prospect, either.
"Can I get you some tea or coffee?" she asked. "Have you had any dinner?"
"Thank you, no," said Larry. "I'm afraid the caffeine would keep me up all night. And I had a bite on the plane."
"Perhaps a glass of brandy?" asked Edna.
"Really, I'm fine, thanks."
"As you wish, Larry," said Edna. "If there's anything I can get you, please let me do so. I can have Rosita whip up a snack if you wish. She's a great cook."
"I'm sure she is, and thank you so much, but I'm really not hungry."
Edna sighed deeply and said, "I understand. You've lost your brother. It's little wonder that you don't have much of an appetite. Why, I could hardly get Jerry Junior to eat a single bite all day. He's just so broken up about the death of his favorite uncle." She gulped and quickly replied, "Not that he doesn't feel the same way about his uncle Larry, of course."
"How is Jerry, anyway?"
"He's in bed asleep right now," said Edna. "He wanted to stay up to see you, but as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out like a light. I know he'll be excited to see you tomorrow, though."
"That will be good," Larry said awkwardly.
"Jeremiah wanted to pick you up from the airport, of course," Edna said, rapidly changing the subject. "But Titus would have none of it. Of course, that was before he decided to start drinking like a fish." Edna stopped and looked embarrassed. "Oh, I do apologize. I just find the way your brother Titus treats Jeremiah simply appalling. And he hasn't treated you any better, either."
Larry remained silent rather than respond. He was still too angry at what Titus had said to him, partly because he almost felt the same way. He wondered why he, a reclusive single man with no family of his own who was little more than a workaholic both in and out of costume, had been spared while Martin Harold Jordan, an outgoing, heroic family man with three young boys, had died and left behind a grieving widow. It didn't seem fair somehow.
"And did you know that Joe is in town?"
"Joe?" asked Larry.
"Yes, he and that horrid hillbilly wife of his," said Edna. "Oh, I'm sorry for speaking of him this way, but Joe was a perfectly good man, if a bit eccentric, before he met that -- that harpy from Tennessee. It was she that turned him into an alcoholic, you know."
"Larry, my boy!"
Larry Jordan turned to see his older brother Jeremiah walk down the hallway from his study. "Hi, Jeremiah."
Jeremiah reached out his hand and shook Larry's. "How was your trip?" he asked.
"It was fine," said Larry.
"Good, good," said Jeremiah, a forced smile on his face. Larry noticed how old his brother now looked. Like Titus, it was as if he had aged drastically since the last time he saw him. His hair, which had been merely graying brown for years, had finally become almost snowy white, with only a few darker hairs scattered throughout, and he had rapidly begun to lose his hair as well, giving him a widow's peak. Jeremiah's handlebar mustache was still dark brown, but a few gray hairs had now begun to infiltrate it. But the most drastic change was around Jeremiah's eyes. The judge had always had a stern face, which had served him well on the bench, but now his unyielding eyes were surrounded by more wrinkles than before, causing Jeremiah to have a permanent frown.
"I came as soon as I heard the news."
"I know you did, Larry. And I'm deeply sorry about Titus. He's taken it very hard, as you must realized."
"He's worse than ever," interrupted Edna. "But I'll leave you two alone. I'll be upstairs if you need me." She turned and walked up the stairway.
"Yes," said Jeremiah. "But this has been hard on all of us. None of us ever dreamed that Marty would be the first to go." He shook his head in contemplation, then turned back to his youngest brother. "But I've forgotten my manners. Let's head into the study, shall we?"
Larry nodded and followed his oldest brother down the hall to the study.
"You must tell me how it's going in Brooklyn," Jeremiah said once the two had settled themselves in the study. "I just realized that I haven't actually seen you in person since you became district attorney. Congratulations again, by the way."
"Thank you, Jeremiah, but I've had the job for just over a year now," said Larry.
"Has it really been that long? My, how time flies." Jeremiah smiled slightly and said, "You know, Marty's oldest boy wants to go into law, too."
"Is that so?" said Larry, a smile forming on his face. It felt good to talk about the boys. "Could we have another Judge Jordan on the horizon someday?"
"Or maybe another D.A. Jordan," suggested Jeremiah. "Certainly, the boy looks up to you, even though you couldn't be more different in personality. Personally, I think the boy is cut out more for politics than law. But I suppose law has always been a respectable stepping stone into government."
"And what about Hal?" asked Larry. He had always felt a kinship with young Harold Jordan most out of all his nephews. Hal was a lot like his dad; he had the spark of heroism in him, as well as his dad's fearlessness. Together, that was a potentially dangerous combination. Larry had always worried that the boy would follow too closely in his father's footsteps and place himself in unnecessarily dangerous situations in an effort to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Larry supposed that Hal must look after his little brother Jim in much the same way that Marty looked after him.
"Oh, Hal is taking it very hard," said Jeremiah. "I've never seen the boy so angry before. He's angry at the world for taking away his father, and he's angry at his father for dying, but it's also as if he's angry most at himself for letting it all happen in the first place. Like the rest of us, the boy is unused to being so damned powerless in the face of death."
"Titus told me that Jack and Hal were there, that they witnessed their father being killed when the plane went down."
"Yes, yes, they were," said Jeremiah, sighing. "As was their mother."
"Jessica was there?" asked Larry. "My God, that's -- that's horrible."
"Thankfully little Jimmy was here with Jerry Junior at the time. But I'm not even sure that Jimmy really understands that his father is gone for good. He -- he keeps asking when his d-daddy will be coming home." Jeremiah's voice began to crack slightly, and his eyes were glistening. He cleared his throat and turned away for a moment. He had always been the stoic type; if the great Judge Jordan was on the verge of tears, then things were very bad indeed.
Once more Larry fought his emotions as well, and the two men let the silence hang in the air for a few more moments. But the time for conversation had passed for these two proud men. Larry thanked Jeremiah for providing him a room to sleep in, and the older brother summoned Rosita to show Larry to his room for the night.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 7:59:33 GMT
Chapter 4
The next morning, Larry Jordan awoke in his room at Jeremiah Jordan's mansion. For a split second he was blissfully unaware of where he was or why, but then it all came crashing down on him. His big brother Marty was dead. If there was a worse way to begin the day, Larry couldn't think of one.
Unlike the previous morning at the cowboy ranch in New Mexico, there was no smell of pancakes wafting upstairs. But there was the smell of burnt toast and eggs. Despite his hunger, Larry had no appetite for anything, and he waited in his room for another twenty minutes before finally getting dressed and walking down the stairs to join the others in the dining room.
"Uncle Larry!" cried Jerry Junior upon seeing him. The seven-year-old ran toward Larry, who grabbed him and picked him up, swinging him around.
"How's the little tyke?" said Larry. He groaned and placed Jerry on the ground. "Ooh, you're a lot heavier than you were the last time I swung you around. I think I hurt my back."
"Don't strain yourself, dear," said Edna, who had always thought of Larry as a rather sickly, bookish young man. She would have been very surprised, to say the least, if she ever learned that Larry was, in fact, the high-flying mystery man known as Air Wave.
"Oh, Larry's perfectly fine, dear," said Jeremiah. "He was almost as athletic as Marty back in his college days, weren't you, Larry?"
Edna looked doubtful as she looked at the bespectacled, scrawny-looking man in the same overly large green suit he had arrived in yesterday. "Are you still wearing that old thing? Here, I'll get Rosita to put the rest of your clothes in the laundry." She turned and called, "Rosita!"
"Oh, please, don't trouble her!" Larry said quickly, knowing it was too late.
"It's no trouble, Larry. No trouble at all. I'm glad to do it." She turned and called even more loudly, "Rosita!" Larry sat back in his chair and sighed, resigned.
"Yes, ma'am?" said Rosita, hurrying from the kitchen. She had a slight Spanish accent.
"Rosita, will you be a dear and go wash Larry's clothes?"
"OK, ma'am," Rosita replied.
"Thank you so much," said Larry. "I'm sorry to trouble you."
"No trouble, senor," said Rosita, smiling at him. "I'll have your clothes clean and pressed in two hours."
"Thanks again."
"She really is a dear," said Edna. "But you have to be careful not to get too chummy, you know. Not with the hired help."
Larry muttered something under his breath and turned away.
"Uncle Larry, can I show you something?" said Jerry, holding a circular tube in his hands.
"Sure, Jerry, what do you want to show me?"
"Watch what I can do," said Jerry. At that, he placed the circular tube around his waist and began to swing his hips. The hula hoop immediately fell on the first try, but Jerry kept on trying to swing it correctly. After a few tries, he finally managed to get it to rotate around him a few times before falling once more.
Larry clapped his hands and said, "That's very good, Jerry."
"Stop pestering your uncle, Junior," said Edna. "Can't you see he hasn't had any breakfast yet?" Jerry Junior wore a hurt look on his face and scampered off into the backyard.
"Oh, it's all right," said Larry. "And I'm really not hungry."
"But you must eat," insisted Edna. "Rosita!"
Larry glanced over at Jeremiah, but his older brother, absorbed in a newspaper, seemed completely oblivious to everything that was going on around him. He really was back in Coastville, wasn't he?
***
After Edna managed to convince Larry to have half a piece of buttered toast and a cup of coffee, she finally stopped pestering him about eating. He spoke with Jeremiah for half an hour, clarifying what his brother knew about the circumstances of Martin's death, since Larry had only heard a brief account from his secretary the previous day.
Larry spent much of the rest of the morning on the telephone to his office back in Brooklyn, which was coping as best it could without its star D.A. Larry had spent the past year rebuilding his team from the ground up, and he was proud of their abilities, but sometimes they needed too much supervision. He had been forced to let go of much of the staff after his promotion, since he quickly found that the others did not respect his position as district attorney; after all, he had been one of them at one time, and now he was the boss.
Over the ensuing months he made a list of people he wanted to replace, a list of people he thought would shape up once the others were gone, and a list of people he wanted to bring in. After the November election, which solidified his standing as D.A., he was finally free to make those personnel changes. For a couple of months afterward, the office was tense, but the new team soon managed to find its way under his leadership. He'd only had to let one other person go since then, and all the new people were flourishing at the D.A.'s office. But some of them still needed him to hold their hands sometimes. Still, they were coming along, and eventually he wouldn't feel so bad about taking a vacation.
He also called his landlady, who had agreed to take care of his pet parrot, Static. She told him that Static had been saying some strange things lately, but the woman was Slovakian and spoke in broken English, anyway. She was unable to understand most of what the parrot said, which was just as well. Static was liable to repeat something he had heard while accompanying Air Wave on one of his cases.
Larry knew that it was a bit eccentric to have a parrot as his sidekick, but he hardly cared. He had always been a bit of an outsider as it was, and Static had actually been extremely useful on several occasions since he had adopted the bird. At other times, of course, the parrot could be a nuisance, but there had been some close scrapes that Static had helped him with. As long as he was useful, he would keep Static around. But if anything ever happened to him, he would quietly retire the bird to a large bird cage in his apartment. It was the least he could do for him. Sure, it wasn't exactly a draw for the ladies to be the Brooklyn equivalent of the Birdman of Alcatraz, but Larry was already too busy to think about his social life as it was, so it was hardly hurting his chances.
After Rosita finished cleaning his clothes, Larry dressed himself in a polo shirt that was more befitting of California weather in July. He then made another phone call and, without letting anyone know, he slipped out of the house and walked to the front gate. He carried his briefcase with him. A taxicab picked him up just as lunch would have been served. The taxi took Larry to the train station, where he boarded the next train into Coast City. Knowing his family as he did, this was the only way he would be able to look into a few things himself without the interference of his brothers or Edna.
A couple of hours later, Larry arrived by taxi to the location of his brother Marty's death: the Ferris Aircraft plant just south of Coast City.
Ferris Aircraft was a defense contractor that worked hand in hand with the U.S. government in developing advanced aircraft, mostly for the U.S. Air Force. Like the Lockheed Corporation and the Hughes Aircraft Company, Ferris Aircraft played a vital role in the nation's defense. Ferris had expanded in recent years in developing an aerospace division and was a growing contributor to NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, especially after John F. Kennedy was elected president late last year.
The company was founded by one Carl Willard Ferris, a businessman with an extensive background in aviation and one hell of a pilot himself. From what Larry had heard, Carl managed day-to-day business at his company very closely, almost micro-managing it. If anyone knew the cause of the explosion that had killed test pilot Lieutenant Martin Harold Jordan, it would be Carl Ferris. Larry just hoped the industrialist would take a moment to speak with him.
It took some effort, but Larry Jordan managed to secure an audience with the great Carl Ferris thanks not only to his family name and relation to Martin, but also due to the fact that he was the well-regarded district attorney of Brooklyn, New York. Ferris was not particularly political himself, except where it concerned his business, but he was known to cultivate friends in high places.
Larry found himself now sitting in the chair before Ferris, having exchanged some greetings and a handshake. The somewhat older man with dark gray hair looked at Larry expectantly; Ferris was unused to having his time wasted. Larry glanced away rather than meet the man's gaze, which was almost as intimidating as Judge Jeremiah Jordan's. He noticed a black and white photograph on the man's desk of a handsome woman with a little raven-haired girl who appeared to be around eight years old.
"The girl in that picture," began Larry, hoping to break the tension somewhat. "Is she your daughter?"
"Yes," Ferris said brusquely, softening not in the least. "My daughter Carol."
"She's a very beautiful little girl," said Larry.
Ferris nodded, and instead of smiling as Larry hoped, he frowned. "When she was born," he explained, "I was crushed. My wife and I had been trying for years to have a son, a boy who would grow up and take over the family business. There were medical complications, and we could not risk trying for any more children."
Larry was puzzled by the man's opening up to him, but pleased nonetheless. "But these are the 1960s, Mr. Ferris. Surely little... Carol, here, might be just as capable to run the company as a boy might be. Why, as district attorney I've come up against a few lady lawyers in court, and I can think of one young girl from Brooklyn with an entrepreneurial spirit who has a fine business head on her shoulders. Perhaps Carol will have inherited that from her father."
Carl Ferris harrumphed and then said, "I suppose." His tone of finality put an end to that conversation.
Without waiting for the inevitable question to be asked of him, Larry said, "Speaking of family, I've come about my brother Martin."
"Yes, of course," said Ferris. "You have my condolences. Jordan was far and away one of our best pilots."
"I don't doubt that," said Larry. "But I'm a bit confused about how the accident happened."
Ferris shifted in his seat. Noticing Larry's pause, he said, "I see. Is there anything I can help you shed light on?"
"There are a few things," continued Larry. "All I've been told is this: that Martin was flying an experimental aircraft on the morning of Wednesday, June 28th, three days ago. There was some problem with the fuel pressure, and the control tower requested that Martin abort immediately. Instead, against specific orders, Martin tried to take the plane in for a hard landing. Upon touching ground, the aircraft burst into flame and exploded. By the time the fire crews reached the burning wreckage of the plane, it was too late." Larry paused for a moment to take a deep breath before continuing.
"My brother's body, burned almost beyond recognition, was recovered too late to save his life." Larry's face had turned pale as he spoke, and his last few words almost choked in his throat as he said them.
Carl Ferris had silently listened in his chair behind his huge oak desk, nodding all along but never once meeting Larry's eyes. After a few moments, in which Ferris seemed to be deliberating something, he turned to Larry to speak.
"Mr. Jordan, your brother Martin was, as I said, my best pilot. No other man alive could have brought that plane down safely in the condition it was in, but if any man could have done it, it would have been Martin." He stood and slowly walked around his desk, then put his right hand on Larry's shoulder. "But Martin was also the most stubborn, most fearless son of a bitch I've ever known. He was a lot like me in that way, in fact. He never gave up, even when he should have. Martin was directly ordered to abort the mission and save himself, but he refused. That damned fearlessness that made him such a great test pilot also took his life. I wish I could help you, Mr. Jordan... Larry, but this tragedy occurred because for the life of him, Martin just couldn't obey direct orders."
Larry Jordan, who by this time was resting the lower half of his face on his balled-up hands, listened as Ferris spoke in as reassuring a manner as he was capable of. He waited for a moment and then spoke. "I don't doubt that, Mr. Ferris. It's just that there must have also been something wrong with the plane that--"
A sharp buzzing noise interrupted him, and Ferris leaned over his desk, pressing an intercom button. "Yes, Miss Weston?"
Ferris' secretary replied, "Your three o'clock is here, sir. Shall I have them wait?"
Carl Ferris glanced down at Larry, then replied, "No, no, send them in." He turned to Larry and said, "I'm very sorry about what happened to your brother, Mr. Jordan, but I hate to mince words. Ultimately, what happened to the plane was an accident, and Martin had no one to blame but himself for not bailing out when he had the chance to do so. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have another appointment I must take." By this time, he was standing behind Larry, ready to help him with his seat.
"We were hoping you'd still be around, Ferris," said one of two men entering the room, not noticing Larry's presence at first.
The other man said, "Evans and I think there's something mighty strange about the autopsy results that Karin--"
They stopped as Ferris moved just enough for the two men to see Larry. "Oh, my apologies," said the second man who'd spoken, placing a pipe in his mouth and extending his hand. He spoke with a very slight Southern drawl as he said, "Jess Bright. Pleased to meet you."
Larry stood and shook hands with the man, who seemed to be around forty, was a bit pudgy, and had a puffy face and scraggly red hair. "Hello," he replied.
His companion, who was around the same age as Bright but a bit taller, was thin, had close-cropped brown hair, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. He also extended his hand. "Dr. Hugh Evans," he said in a slight Boston accent.
They shook hands as Larry said, "Larry Jordan. Pleased to meet you."
Beneath his glasses, Evans' eyes widened. "Jordan? Are you--?"
"Mr. Jordan was just leaving," said Carl Ferris, turning him by the shoulders and escorting him to the door of his office.
Before Larry could say another word, he found himself on the outside of Carl Ferris' office, chilled to the bone as he realized what he'd just overheard. Miss Weston, the secretary, paused from her typing long enough to look up at him and say, "Would you like to make another appointment?"
"No," said Larry, walking away. "At least not with Mr. Ferris."
Miss Weston shrugged and went back to typing.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 8:00:12 GMT
Chapter 5
Larry Jordan decided to pay a visit to the Coast City Coroner's Office. After what he'd overheard Ferris' guests say, there was no doubt in his mind that Carl Ferris was not being entirely honest with him.
And it was for that reason that Larry first made a quick stop in the men's washroom, where he locked the door to ensure he'd have some privacy for what he was about to do. No, since he'd had virtually nothing to eat, there was no real reason for him to visit the men's washroom. But it was from this discreet location that he would be able to gain some information.
Swiftly opening his briefcase on the marble counter next to the sink, Larry pushed aside his change of clothes and toiletries and unlocked a false bottom. There, in a hidden compartment in his briefcase, he had stored his green Air Wave costume, as well as the equipment he used in his capacity as a costumed crime-fighter. Since he was traveling by plane, and his luggage could be searched, it was important for him to take the proper precautions against having his secret identity discovered.
First, his green and yellow Air Wave costume was pressed tightly to the bottom of the hidden compartment. Attached to it was a price tag for a Brooklyn costume shop, just in case the false bottom was discovered and opened; most people who met the reserved district attorney would assume, he hoped, that Larry had purchased the Air Wave uniform for a costume party. At the very least, it would create doubt in the mind of anyone holding a suspicion of him being a mystery man. After all, Air Wave costumes, along with Plastic Man and Vigilante costumes, were popular this year and could be found in many costume shops across the country, especially in New York.
Second, his headset radio gear was dismantled into a few parts that by themselves would be innocuous in the hands of a transistor radio enthusiast. The most difficult aspect of the costume to hide were, of course, his boots with the collapsible wheels constructed to glide along high-wires and power lines alike. But he had managed to find a workaround by removing the wheel array from the boot and slotting them into the bottom of the large briefcase itself, where they acted as wheels. The short boots, sans wheels, he simply wore beneath his trousers. They were ordinarily dark brown in color, but with a simple application of an electrical charge, they changed to bright yellow in keeping with the rest of his costume. He could change the color back to dark brown by draining the charge.
It was his radio gear, not his costume, that he needed now. Placing the headpiece, sans green cowl, upon his head, Larry listened carefully as he attempted to tune in to the metal radiator in Carl Ferris' office. It took several moments, since it was such a large building with a sizable staff, but after a few minutes of trying, he was able to recognize the voice of Ferris himself. Judging by the tone of his voice, the man was angry.
"--tell me that it's any of this hoodoo flying saucer stuff, Evans! It's Conrad -- it's got to be. He's never forgiven me for shutting him out of the business two years ago. I just never dreamed he would take it out on my best pilot!"
"I'm Jess Bright, Mr. Ferris! He's Evans. I can't for the life of me figure out why people keep getting us mixed up!"
"Anyway, Mr. Ferris, all we're saying is, don't discount the possibility. You say it's sabotage from your ex-business partner, and it very well may be, but just keep an open mind. You wouldn't believe the things we've seen over the past couple of years."
"Monsters! Aliens! Extra-Sensory Perception! Parallel Worlds! You name it, we've seen it."
"And fought it."
"That, too."
Larry listened for a few moments more to this strange conversation as he pulled out a custom-made magnetic tape recorder he sometimes used for surveillance work. Placing his radio transceiver behind a toilet bowl and adjusting it so that it still worked properly, he connected an audio cable from the radio directly to the recorder and began silently taping the conversation. It would remain undiscovered there until he could pick it up. Unfortunately, the small magnetic tape only recorded twenty minutes of audio before it ran out. He hoped he wouldn't miss much.
Leaving the men's washroom, Larry left the Ferris Aircraft building and took a taxicab downtown.
At the Coast City Coroner's Office, Larry Jordan introduced himself as the brother of the deceased and as Brooklyn's district attorney, but he had no success in speaking to the Chief Coroner or any of his assistants. They were busy. The secretary at the front desk was apologetic but firm on that point. Larry sighed, thanked her, and began to leave before turning around and asking if he could use the men's washroom. Smiling, the secretary happily pointed the way.
Once in the washroom, Larry locked the door and wasted no time in setting up his gear. Although he did not have a second magnetic tape recorder with him, he did have another radio transceiver of his own invention that he immediately used to try and pick up any sound from the morgue. He knew he was grasping at straws by hoping that he would hear something of importance, but he had to take that chance.
All he heard, however, was a rather dull conversation between a man who seemed to be an Assistant Coroner and a woman who had apparently been brought in as a specialist. They were talking about art history, of all things. Larry listened intently at first but after several minutes found himself nearly dozing off. The lack of food and sleep was beginning to get to him.
He was almost ready to pack his things up and leave when he heard the Assistant Coroner refer to the woman as Karin. His ears perked up at that, since he'd heard that name spoken by that Jess Bright fellow back at Ferris Aircraft. He began to listen more intently, until a loud knock on the door startled him.
"Hello, sir?" It was the secretary. Larry cursed under his breath. Of course she would be concerned about him in there after all this time, since she would have known he was in there until he left and passed her desk again. "Hello, are you all right in there?"
"Uh..." Larry began. "I'm fine, thank you. Just, uh, having some indigestion." He winced at the lie; it sounded weak even to him.
Fumbling to place his radio transceiver back into his briefcase, he jumped as the door was suddenly unlocked, and a tall, strong-looking man in a United States Air Force uniform strode inside. The secretary remained at the door, trying to peek in.
Larry was about as embarrassed as he would have been had he been caught with his trousers down. But he had managed to hide his radio transceiver in the false bottom of his briefcase just in time.
"Just washing up now," Larry explained nervously.
The USAF man, who held the rank of captain judging by his stripes, looked at him with a strange expression. But whether it was suspicion or something else altogether, Larry couldn't tell. He thrust his hand out suddenly and smiled. "Captain Rick Flag," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
"L-Larry Jordan. Likewise."
"Jordan?" said Flag, one eyebrow raised. "Not Martin's brother, the D.A.?"
"I am," said Larry hesitantly. How did this man know Marty?
Flag smiled at him warmly. "I was proud to call your brother a close friend, Mr. Jordan. We saw action together in Korea and kept in touch ever since. He was certainly proud of his little brother, the district attorney. I'm very sorry for your loss. Marty was a good man."
"Thank you," said Larry.
Flag eyed the still-open briefcase, reached for it, and said, "Let me get that for you."
"Oh, don't worry about that," said Larry, slight panic evident in his voice.
"It's no trouble at all," said the tall Air Force man, closing the briefcase and grabbing it by the handle. "I'll walk you out. Do you have a ride back to your hotel?"
"I-I've got a cab waiting for me," said Larry.
"Then the least I can do is escort you back to your hotel," Flag insisted.
"That's really not necessary," Larry said. "Besides, I'm not staying at a hotel."
"Oh?" said Flag. "Then where can I escort you?"
"I had been planning to visit my brother's home next."
"Great!" said Flag. "Jessica and the boys will be glad to see you, I'm sure. If we hurry, we just might make it there in time for dinner."
"Rick?" said a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair in a white lab coat. "Is anything wrong?"
"Everything's fine, Karin," said Flag. "I'm just heading out with Mr. Jordan, here. Can you wait here until Jess and Hugh show up?"
"A-all right," said Karin, staring at Larry once she realized who he was.
"Come on, Larry," said Rick Flag, placing his free hand around the shorter Larry's shoulders and pushing him out the door. "Let's go say hi to the Jordans."
As the taxicab pulled away from the Coast City Coroner's Office, Larry Jordan wondered how he found himself in this situation. The truth of the matter is that this Captain Rick Flag of the USAF had such a forceful personality, obviously used to leadership, that he had not even given any chance for Larry to object to his decisions. Flag's voice jarred Larry out of his thoughts.
"Mr. Jordan," said Flag. "Larry, I do sympathize with you. Marty was like a brother to me, but even so, I can't imagine how hard it must be on you, his closest brother." He paused as he looked at Larry, somewhat sympathetically. "But I must ask you to drop any idea of pursuing your own investigation of your brother's death."
"Y-you know?"
"I guessed it," said Flag. "And you just confirmed my suspicions. I understand. Really, I do. You're an investigator by nature -- it's part of the reason you're such a successful D.A. -- but you're too close to this case. It won't do you or the memory of your brother any good to pursue an independent investigation into his death. But I want to assure you that I and my team are doing all we can to find out what caused the crash."
"Your team?" asked Larry, one eyebrow raised. "And what team would that be?"
Now Flag was on the defensive. He sighed and said, "We're an investigative team of four specialists working for the U.S. government. What makes us different from, say, the Central Intelligence Agency or another investigative agency is that we pursue only the strangest of cases, the kind that sometimes makes the papers but most times doesn't. Our official designation is Task Force X, but we call ourselves by another name: the Suicide Squad."
"And why are you telling me this?"
"You're Marty's brother. And you're a respected district attorney, besides. But most importantly, I want you to know that we've got things under control, and you can trust us to handle this investigation."
Larry nodded but looked skeptical. "And can I trust you to pursue every angle, not simply the most... shall we say... sensational explanation? I understand you and your Suicide Squad may encounter flying saucers and monsters on a regular basis, but not everything has to be like something out of a B-movie."
"I fully agree," said Flag. "So can I count on you? Will you trust us -- trust me -- to pursue this investigation without any interference?"
Larry turned away, a frown on his face. After a few moments in thought, he finally said, "All right. If Marty trusted you, then I know I can, too. You have a deal, Flag. I'll leave things in your capable hands. But if the matter remains inconclusive for too long, I'm going to find out how Marty was killed for myself, OK?"
"That's perfectly reasonable," said Flag, nodding. "Thank you for your cooperation, Larry."
The Brooklyn district attorney nodded tersely and turned away to look through the taxicab window at the passing streets. As promised, he certainly would drop the investigation as Larry Jordan, D.A., but as Air Wave, it was a different matter. Air Wave would get to the bottom of this, come hell or high water.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 15, 2017 8:00:31 GMT
To be continued!
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