Prologue
It was the wee hours of the morning in the Opal City business district - and the rest of the city, for that matter! There was a local saying that anyone out and about at that hour was either a doctor or a crook. Well, turns out that isn't quite true. There may be reporters out then too!
Anyone watching the pocket park near the Capital Building would have been surprised to see two well-dressed gentlemen seated on one of the benches, deep in conversation, just as if it were the middle of the day. Although the watcher would have to peer very hard, as well-trimmed trees and hedges blocked out the light from the nearby street lamps, leaving the bench in a pool of deep darkness.
It wouldn't be very healthy to be that watcher, though. A half dozen other men, in the employ of one or the other of the figures on the bench, were scattered around the area to make sure there weren't any watchers. What would happen to anyone they found wouldn't be pleasant. Probably not fatal, either, but sometimes mistakes happened... These men remained very well hidden and they were quite good at their jobs - and very patient. A homeless drunk had wandered nearby, unknowingly putting himself at risk, but he had never noticed anything, and so had been allowed to stumble away, ignorant of his close brush with terror and pain.
And yet, even with all the precautions used by the sentries, the early morning meeting was under observation. The observer was tall and slender, dressed entirely in midnight blue and black, wearing a black trench coat and a tight fitting black mask, which left no skin exposed. Close examination would have shown that the mask didn't confine her black hair, which fell below her shoulders, and a US Army night vision snooperscope over her eyes, the power pack carried in a backpack concealed under the trench coat. She was carefully carrying a 5' quarterstaff, which was colored flat black. In the other hand she had an unlit flashlight and there was a camera slung around her neck. The camera and flashlight had also been colored flat black. She moved carefully and very quietly, clearly aware of the positions of the 6 sentries, and their two principals seated on the bench. So far she had managed to remain hidden from the sentries as she approached, but that was about to change.
If you haven't yet recognized Lily DeLuna in search of a story, that's not surprising. She didn't normally wear a costume when she was working. But wasn't normally trying to overhear a conversation between a gangster boss and a top city official at 3 am, either! When she had learned of this meeting, she had put together the outfit, hoping she would be able to approach without being seen. She had hoped the two principals would come alone, but they were too paranoid for that! It was kind of exciting to be dressed up as a 'mystery woman' and she had even made up her own code name, 'Moonflower'. She had to keep reminding herself that this wasn't a game. It could mean her life if those thugs caught her.
Lily had hoped that she would be able to get close enough to overhear the conversation between the seated men, but she realized that no matter how carefully she moved, this was as close as she was going to get without being caught. She could hear their voices, but was unable to make out what they were saying. She was disappointed but not surprised. She had a backup plan for just this situation. A record of their conversation would be best, but photographs of the two men meeting would be sufficient for the story she was planning to write.
She really didn't want to have to fight 6 armed men at once! If they hadn't had guns, she thought her staff might give her a chance. Very few people who weren't trained in martial arts realized just how dangerous a weapon a quarterstaff really was. Again, she had to remind herself to be careful - she had never actually fought 6 opponents before except in training classes, and those opponents had never been thugs! These guys wouldn't stop fighting if they hurt her.
Working very carefully and quietly, she pulled a flare from a pocket inside the trench coat. She set up a tripod and mounted the camera, then aimed it at the bench deep in the shadows. She estimated the distance and set the focus. She had practiced taking pictures using the light from flares several times recently, to find the best combination of shutter speed and film speed to get the best possible pictures. She knew that best she could hope for would be high contrast black and white pictures, but the men in the pictures should be readily recognizable, giving her proof that this secret meeting really took place. She set the automatic camera to take 5 pictures as fast as it could, which would take about 7 seconds. She then took a deep breath, and started the timer.
She had 10 seconds to prepare - or back out! She got ready to ignite and throw the flare, and then waited out the longest 10 seconds of her life!
Finally she pulled the cord on the flare and threw it towards the bench. The shutter clicked just before the flare ignited, and all 8 men turned towards the camera. They were looking right at the flare when it ignited, and they were all temporarily blinded.
The first picture was taken in darkness, but the flare provided illumination for the other 4 pictures. She hoped at least 2 of the pictures would show their faces, before they got their arms up to block out the light. She had removed the night vision goggles, turned her back and closed her eyes, and as soon as she saw the flare light through her eyelids she opened them again. As soon as the camera stopped clicking, she picked it up and took off running, directly away from the park. She had scouted this route carefully earlier today, and the flare provided enough light that she could run at top speed.
There was total confusion behind her - all 8 men had been blinded by the flare and were unable to see. And the flare had rolled close enough to one of the seated men to set his pants leg on fire! Several shots were fired, blindly, before the men on the bench screamed at their sentries to stop shooting before they hurt their bosses! One man and his 3 bodyguards groped towards the edge of the park, stumbling towards their car, while the other man rolled on the ground, screaming in pain as he tried to put out the fire eating at his pant leg. One of his bodyguards had apparently partly recovered his sight, because he wrapped his jacket around his boss's leg and then lay on top of it to smother the flames. The boss screamed at him, and he quickly jumped up.
As she ran on, Lily paused briefly to activate a fire alarm call box, and then continued running. She risked a look back and was well-satisfied to see that in some of the buildings around the park lights were starting to come on. A few of the companies in the area maintained night watchmen, and the screaming and shooting had been enough to alert these watchmen, even those who had been asleep. In only a few minutes, the police and fire fighters ought to arrive. She thought the conspirators would probably escape, but that was OK. She hoped she had the photo she needed!
As she had planned, she was well away from the area before the men had recovered their sight well enough to start looking for her, and by that time, all they had in mind was getting away before the police arrived. About a quarter mile away, she stopped, very winded. As if running in a trench coat wasn't tiring enough, the power pack for the night vision goggles weighed about 30 pounds. Lily had planned her escape carefully, though. From behind a hedge around a restaurant that offered outdoor seating, she pulled a bicycle and quickly rode away. Within 15 minutes of the time she threw the flare, Lily had covered more than 2 miles.
She had changed directions several times, and she was sure nobody was following her. She was thankful that almost nobody in Opal City was out and about at this hour. She knew that in New York or Metropolis, the streets would be far from deserted. She had had to take a chance that somebody might see her riding her bike and wonder what she was doing out at that time in the morning, especially dressed as she was and with a snooperscope. But she had planned the route carefully and encountered no one.
Lily had bought the bike, used, the day before for $2, so it didn't bother her much to leave it behind. She was near an elementary school, which had a bike rack out back. This must be a safe neighborhood - there were a half dozen bikes left overnight in the rack, and only two of them were locked. She slipped her bike into the rack, hoping that it would eventually end up in the hands of a good kid. She had parked her car a block away. Before she got in, she took off the black trench coat and the blue and black shirt she was wearing and put on a blouse that she often wore to work. It went well with the dark midnight blue of her pants. She packed the coat and shirt into the pack with the snooperscope, and stashed the pack in the trunk.
Lily was worried that somebody might remember her car. She drove a supercharged gold 1936 Cord Sportster Cabriolet, not exactly a common sight. But she even had that covered - she had often driven her car to work when she was on the night shift at the Register, and she always drove down this road. She wasn't working night shift any longer, but she occasionally stopped in to see her friend Betsy, and that was her alibi tonight.
The man who had escaped being burned was John Ross, chairman of the Opal City City Council. The other man, currently nursing a painfully burned leg, was 'Boss' Neuertski, one of the leaders of organized crime in Opal. Neither man looked forward to the reaction that would occur if their meeting was exposed to the public! All Ross could do was pray, but Neuertski had other options. After he and his bodyguards had finally hopped into their car, the Boss exploded!
"Stones, what the hell was that? You guys are supposed to protect me! Did you see who that was?" Jackie "Stones" Stonalli was the most senior of the bodyguard crew. Well, he had been the most senior - he
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